Steve

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares
 
Star Trek: The Love Boat
 
Starring:
Captain James T. Kirk
Commander William Riker
Lieutenant Tom Paris
Doctor Julian Bashir
And Subcommander T'Pol, your cruise director

#1000 is up, and it looks like I was right about Hel's plan.
 
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1000.html

Necromancy For Fun And Profit
The Succubus: A Magical Companion
How To Charm Friends And Influence People
The Complete Book Of Elves
Tenser's Guide To Elementals
Tenser's Guide To Demons
Tenser's Guide To Devils

In video games, I hate escort missions with a passion.

The auditorium was abuzz with uncertain conversation.  The Finals were already underway; nobody was sure why there would be a press conference now.  Two men in the gathered crowd speculated.
 
"Another rule change, maybe?"
 
"Nah, I think the Commissioner would have taken care of that before the first fight.  It's not like him to change things on the fly."
 
"Unless he has a really good reason."
 
"True, but any rule change now would probably be blatantly unfair to one team or the other.  And our Lord Commissioner is nothing if not fair."
 
"His d12, on the other hand...."
 
"Yes, well, the less said about that, the better."
 
Before the other could speak, the light dimmed save for a spotlight focused on the rostrum.  For the first time, they noticed there were two lecterns, each with a microphone.
 
"Let's see what the Commissioner has to say tonight."
 
But it wasn't the Commissioner.  Instead, two beautiful, powerful young women came out onto the stand from opposite sides, hugged like old friends (which, of course, they were), and took their places, each taking a spot behind a lectern.
 

 
"Huh.  Wasn't expecting that."
 
"Me neither.  Better looking than the Commissioner, though."
 
"Yeah, that goes without saying."
 
 
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," Carol began, "and thank you for coming.  I'm Carol Danvers, team captain of Spectrum.  To begin, I'd like to defer to Susan Storm, team captain of Damage Incorporated."
 
"Thank you, Carol," Susan continued.  "As many of you are aware, the Infinite Universes Theorem hypothesizes that for every possible series of events or consequences, there is an alternate reality in which those events actually came to pass.  For example, there are, according to the Theorem, universes where the Confederacy won the United States Civil War, where the Denver Broncos have won five Super Bowls, and where Tony Stark is a humble, unassuming man of slightly above average intelligence."
 
This last comment drew a lot of laughs from the crowd.  Good, she thought.
 
Carol continued.  "In this reality, our two fine teams, Damage Incorporated and Spectrum, were shut out of this season's Arena Games playoffs.  But somewhere, in some alternate reality, it is our two teams who are playing for the championship this week.  So for your entertainment, we want to bring a taste of that reality here to you."
 
 
"What the heck are they talking about?"
 
"I have no idea.  It should be fun to find out."
 
 
After a few moments of crowd murmuring, Susan resumed.  "Each of the next five days, members of our two teams will face off in an unofficial, unsanctioned Arena Games-style event we're calling 'Arena Games Elseworlds'.  It's strictly for your entertainment: No Bonus Points, no arbitrary die rolls, just your votes for who you think would win on any given day.  It's all for fun."
 
The murmuring grew into a dull roar, which Carol allowed a few moments to subside before continuing.  "We will be using the same arenas each day as the actual finalists--after they're done with them of course.  We have met together, our two teams, and we have a great lineup of contests for you to watch and to vote on.  You won't be disappointed."
 
Susan added, "Oh, and if you have any questions about the event, please direct them to us, or to our representatives.  Don't bother the Commissioner with this.  He'll be busy enough with the real matches."
 
"Also," Carol continued, "the Commissioner doesn't know anything about this.  We made all the arrangements independently.  Easier to get forgiveness than permission and all that."  With that she winked at the audience, and cheers broke out.
 
"So, in a few moments we will announce our first match of the week," Susan concluded.  "I think you're going to love it."  She turned her attention to Carol and smiled.  "Good luck, Spectrum!"
 
Carol returned the smile. "Good luck, Damage Incorporated!"

Whichever team does NOT put an archer into the Redwood Forest match will not get my vote. If both teams pass on doing so, I wil vote for whoever is behind at the time.
 
I really want to see an archer duel.

Lead a bunch of gamers? It's worse than herding cats.

Well... If I were doing it, I'd start with Australia's ancient past. Australia is where the Valdorian Age happened. (If you've got Valdorian Age, you'll notice that you've got to take the map, hold it upside down, squint,  move some places, put a sea in the central desert and change names and descriptions around to make it clear that the ancient Valdorians are the ancestors of modern Aboriginal population. But, hey, it's a medieval map, so it's probably wrong, and the Shimmering Sea is artificial, so it's not impossible. 
 
Oh, and the Tower of the First and Last Sunset is in Tasmania, Takofanes' grave is in New Guinea (only, somehow, it got moved to Oklahoma.) No problem with that, though, cuz who ever goes to Tasmania? Or Oklahoma?
 
These things aren't completely mysterious,  so now I'm going to put a Valdorian Age archaeological park in downtown Melbourne.
 
Now I'm going to put three superheroes in Melbourne, in excess of the "expected" population of Australian supers --that is, they're there for a reason. Assault has already given us one reason: a "White Event" which creates a lot of superheroes. It's a Valdorian Age event!
 
Now I'm going to send a mysterious, cloned supervillain to Melbourne to kill those superheroes. Who made Taipan? What's his deal? If he's from the obvious retail outlet, he's a Teleios product. What's Teleios's connection with the Valdorian Age? Actually, the big question with Teleios is his mysterious patron. What's that person's deal with the Valdorian Age? Or Australia? Is he, say, an ancient Drindrish dragon riding sorceror with a black, soul-sucking sword? It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Okay, so it's probably moot now (what with Thawne's fate) but...
 
"Psst. Hey, Barry. Yeah, you in the red suit."
"Who are you?"
"Never mind. See that man lying on the floor over there? Not too far from your dead mom?"
"You mean my dad?"
"Yeah."
"What about him?"
"Well, it occurs to me that if he were bound and helpless in a roll of duct tape, the authorities would have a much harder time accusing him of the murder."
"..."
"And you're superfast, and you're right here, and you've got a few seconds to spare so--"
Whoooooooooooooooooosh!
"Done."
 
This was LITERALLY the first thought I had when they gave us that shot of Barry's dad lying on the floor unconscious. DUCT TAPE HIM! He can't be the killer if he's a victim! Okay, so he couldn't save mom. But at least dad won't spend twenty years in prison.

Captain America did better as part of a team than he did solo. That makes an odd sort of sense.

I was trying to show camaraderie with Lady Pariah as both of us are newcomers, but my typing went awry.
 
Perhaps Hermit will be merciful and not kill more than one or two of my team.

Root for me and Lady Hermit, since we're the underdogs going against undefeated foes.

Nuts! Lady Pariah... Sorry.

I think I've dug quite a deep enough grave for myself already, thank you.

I plan on watching it.
 
Having Dean Cain and Helen Slater play Kara's Earth parents is a great casting gag.

I plan on watching it.
 
Having Dean Cain and Helen Slater play Kara's Earth parents is a great casting gag.

I plan on watching it.
 
Having Dean Cain and Helen Slater play Kara's Earth parents is a great casting gag.

I vote to extend things into next week rather than rush through matches this week.

I vote to extend things into next week rather than rush through matches this week.

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 / Gomi No ShuShu: 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
Universal Brotherhood ("UB"): a charitable fringe religious organization; secretly controlled by insect sprits
SIN: System ID Number; a combination of a social security number, driver's license, passport and debit card number
 
Universal Brotherhood - Getting Out of Dodge
 
Eye Spy: "These raids are just going to get harder and harder until the UB mops the floor with us."
Audacity Jane: "If they're smart, they'll reinforce the Seattle chapterhouses with additional guards from outside the area."
Happy Jack: "I certainly hope they do."
Eye Spy: "Do you have a death wish?"
Happy Jack: "No. I plan to start hitting chapterhouses in other cities."
 
Eye Spy: "How are we going to get our gear to other cities? Border guards and airport security tend to be really picky about those things."
Happy Jack: "We're going to get another vehicle. One more suited for hopping around the country."
Eye Spy: "YES!! We can finally get a helicopter."
Happy Jack: "I found something that's better. A blimp."
Eye Spy: "A blimp? It will take us forever to get anyplace."
Happy Jack: "These aren't your grandparents' Goodyear blimps. Cruising speed around 180 kmph. Top speed double that. They're harder to spot with radar or IR than anything short of a stealth glider. They're used by executives to get around cities and between cities, so everyone will assume we're rich and important. They also have enough range to get across the continent without refueling."
Audacity Jane: "They may be hard to spot with electronics, but they're really easy to spot with a Mark I eyeball."
Happy Jack: "I know. That's why I want to put LED panels on it. When we're cruising around cities at night, we can disguise ourselves as an advert-blimp. Nobody pays attention to those, and nobody expects one to spit out an infiltration team."
Audacity Jane: "You've got to be kidding. Your way to hide a blimp is to cover it in brightly lit advertisements?"
 
Eye Spy: "So where are we going to hit the UB next?"
No-Step: "California Free State would be a logical next stop. It's close. The UB was founded there, so they have a large presence."
Happy Jack: "That's the main reason I want to hit them somewhere else. I'm guessing they can follow the same trail of logic."
Dent: "So you're going to come up with an illogical way of choosing targets?"
 
Since the team was supporting their attacks on the UB chapterhouses by smuggling, the actual targets were chosen by which countries had inflated/deflated prices for certain goods.
 
Byte Force: "Where are we going first?"
Happy Jack: "Confederate American States."
No-Step: "Should I even bother asking what is overpriced there?"
Happy Jack: "Anything electronic. There's a huge tariff in order to 'protect' the nearly nonexistent domestic electronics industry. It artificially inflates the prices."
No-Step: "And what goods are available at cheap prices?"
Happy Jack: "Guns and ammo."
No-Step: "Are the Confederates deliberately trying to live up to the stereotypes?"
 
The team was understandably paranoid about the UB catching up with them when they sold living flesh form insect spirits to the biotech megacorps:
Each of the megacorps had employees that were UB members.
Some of those members were human form insect spirits capable of masking their true nature.
The human form insect spirits would act in the best interest of the hive/queen.
Even the non-possessed UB members might be persuaded to act in the UB's interest, instead of their corp's interest.
 
No-Step: "Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the UB will attack us when we attempt to hand over the live flesh form?"
Happy Jack: "It's highly likely. That's why we're not going to be there."
No-Step: "So who is going to the meet in our place?"
Happy Jack: "Nobody. We'll talk to the buyer on the phone, they'll deposit the money in a numbered account, and we'll get the flesh form there some other way."
Byte Force: "We can always send the flesh form by robocab."
Eye Spy: "We could steal a car and program the autopilot."
Dent: "I could mind control a courier into delivering it."
Audacity Jane: "Candygram."
 
Byte Force had been busy inventing new toys to use against the UB....
 
Byte Force: "This is pretty straightforward. I found a heat-resistant insecticide to coat flechettes with. If I'm right, you might be able to kill true form insect spirits with them."
Audacity Jane: "And if you're wrong?"
Byte Force: (shrugging) "Then it's like shooting an elephant with a BB gun. It's not going to hurt the elephant, but it might make it mad."
Audacity Jane: "And the only way to know whether you're right or wrong is for me to risk my life testing it...."
No-Step: "That's the joy of the scientific method."
 
Byte Force: "I figured out a way to make the UB's building unusable ... and it's not covered by their insurance."
Audacity Jane: "A nuclear warhead?"
Byte Force: "Stink bombs. I made some gas and paint grenades filled with putrescine, cadaverine, skatole and butryc acid."
No-Step: "So it smells like dead bodies and ... what else?"
Byte Force: "It smells like rotting meat, feces and vomit."
Dent: "That should cut the attendance at their meetings."
Eye Spy: (turning slightly green) "Crap. I think I'm going to get sick just thinking about it."
Happy Jack: "Well ... stop thinking about it."
Eye Spy: "..."
Happy Jack: "And just to set the ground rules for Byte Force's super-stinker ... if anyone ever uses that on a building that I'm in, or one that I need to go into, I will kill them myself."
 
Audacity Jane: "Is that stink bomb really going to be effective? Some insects really like those smells."
Byte Force: "But normal people don't. That's who I want to drive away from the building."
Dent: "If any of the UB members don't seem completely grossed out by the smell, you'll know they're insect possessed."
 
The team performed reconnaissance on the the target UB building in the normal manner. They abducted one of the UB members who also worked there as a janitor.
 
Dent: (after performing Mind Probe) "This seems wrong. The inner sanctum is on the top floor, not the basement or ground floor like normal."
No-Step: "Some insects prefer to live above ground or higher up."
Happy Jack: "Bees, wasps..."
Eye Spy: "I suppose butterflies would be a bit too much to hope for."
 
After killing the queen and capturing a live flesh form insect spirit, it was time to sell it.
 
Gomi No ShuShu: "My hunters captured a live specimen in Oklahoma City. Where would you like them to deliver it?"
Shiawase procurement specialist: "I thought you were going to deliver one in Seattle."
Gomi No ShuShu: "That's the challenge with live specimens. You have to acquire them where you can find them." (pause) "Shiawase has some large facilities in Oklahoma City. Your local people can handle the pick-up."
Shiawase procurement specialist: "They're not experts in handling paranormal animals."
Gomi No ShuShu: "The specimen will be heavily sedated, securely bound and muzzled. They will only need sufficient skills to pick up and carry dead weight."
Shiawase procurement specialist: "..."
 
The Shiawase procurement specialist seemed slightly surprised that Gomi No ShuShu requested that the payment be wired to a numbered account, rather than given in the usual certified credsticks.
 
Gomi No ShuShu: "Oh ... one more thing." (pause) "You may want to bring additional security personnel to the
Shiawase procurement specialist: "Why?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "I believe a number of Shiawase employees are involved with the former owner of the specimen. Therefore, I'm a bit concerned that there may be a security leak on your end."
Shiawase procurement specialist: (sounding slightly angry) "Which Shiawase employees?"
Gomi No ShuShu: (cheerfully) "I would be happy to discuss the sale of that information ... right after we complete the delivery of the specimen and the wire transfer of funds."
 
After the call was complete....
 
Dent: "I guess we'll be able to tell if he's connected to the UB if he refuses to pay us."
Happy Jack: "If he's working for the UB, then he's definitely going to pay us."
Audacity Jane: "Why? They're not dumb enough to pay to get their bug back."
Happy Jack: "It's the oldest trick in the book for tracking down who is behind a crime. Follow the money. He'll pay us just to see who collects the money."
Audacity Jane: "So we will get paid. We just won't be able to get our money back without getting killed."
Happy Jack: "Sure we can. We'll just have to launder it first."
 
In order to transport the flesh form insect spirit to the Shiawase procurement specialist (without having to go themselves), they loaded it into a robocab and sent it on its way.
 
Dent: "I thought robocabs required a SIN to use."
Byte Force: "We paid with a certified credstick, then used a SIN to activate the cab."
Dent: "Whose SIN did you use?"
Byte Force: "I borrowed a dummy SIN from the morgue."
Audacity Jane: "If you needed a dummy's SIN, you could have just borrowed Dent's."
 
Eye Spy: "I don't understand. Doesn't the system check to make sure the person's not dead?"
Audacity Jane: "Or audit afterward to make sure nobody is using the dead person's SIN?"
Byte Force: "A dummy SIN is used to process a Jon Doe through the morgue. First they have to activate the SIN in order to process the John Doe through the morgue. After they've finished activating his SIN and processing him through the morgue, they then process his death certificate and deactivate the SIN."
No-Step: "Your tax dollars at work."
Audacity Jane: "That would be more disturbing if we actually paid taxes."
Byte Force: "The system only performs a cursory SIN check if you're doing a legal purchase. As long as you have the money, the SIN check is a rubber stamp."
Happy Jack: "If Shiawase or the UB tries to backtrack where the cab came from, the cab records will lead back to this spot..."
Audacity Jane: "... chosen for the lack of security cameras ..."
Happy Jack: "... and the money trail will lead back to a dead SINless guy. I'm absolutely positive he won't rat us out."
 
No-Step called the procurement specialist one more time....
 
No- Step: "The specimen is en route. Let your people know that it will be arriving in a robocab."
Shiawase procurement specialist: "You squeezed into a robocab with a dangerous paranormal animal?"

No- Step: "Of course not. The specimen is in the robocab. I'm not getting within miles of the delivery site."
Shiawase procurement specialist: "..."

No- Step: "I told you that Shiawase might have a security leak. I'm not risking my life on the belief that you plugged it. I can complete the rest of our business from this end of the phone."

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 / Gomi No ShuShu: 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
Universal Brotherhood ("UB"): a charitable fringe religious organization; secretly controlled by insect sprits
 
Universal Brotherhood - The Saga Continues
 
For their next attack, the team chose the Universal Brotherhood chapterhouse in Auburn, which was controlled by termite spirits.
 
Audacity Jane: "When we attack the Auburn chapterhouse, let's break into one of the top floors."
Eye Spy: "Why? Isn't the hive in the basement?"
Audacity Jane: "We can take the elevator straight to the basement ... and nobody will expect us to break into the third or fourth floor when everything important is in the basement."
No-Step: "There's a difference between 'nobody will expect it' and 'it's a good idea'."
 
Byte Force: "I don't want to use cell phone jammers for this attack. If UB security is smart, they'll be listening for those by now and use them to trigger alarms."
Audacity Jane: "That's going to put us on a really tight timetable. Lone Star has a much better response rate in Auburn than Redmond."
Byte Force: "Don't worry about that. I have another way to slow them down."
Eye Spy: "Any time one of you says 'don't worry about that,' you make the rest of us worry more."
Byte Force: "Lone Star is going to get bombarded with several 'officer down' and 'officer needs assistance' calls at the same time you enter the chapterhouse. I think those will take priority over any calls from the UB."
 
Audacity Jane: "I can override the elevator controls, so nobody can use it but us. But that won't stop the UB guards from coming down the stairs behind us."
Happy Jack: "That's easy. We can use a paint grenade to slow down the reinforcements."
Audacity Jane: "How is a paint grenade going to do that?"
Byte Force: "I've taken the paint out of several of them and replaced it with lubricant."
Dent: "Won't that make them get downstairs even faster?"
 
As the team battled the flesh form and true form termite spirits in the basement...
 
Dent: "This building can't be worth very much ... it's infested with termites."
 
After killing the queen, Jack put a few flesh forms into body bags and dragged them into the elevator. No-Step, on the other hand, hid a few noisemakers around the basement.
 
Dent: "Is that your idea of helping?"
No-Step: "If we fire these off after we take the elevator back to the third floor, the remaining guards will be too busy storming the basement to look for us there."
 
After the raid, the Universal Brotherhood was forced to perform more spin control. The team, on the other hand was perfectly willing to provide anonymous tips to investigative reporters.
 
Anonymous tip: The Universal Brotherhood blamed the first attack on a homeless, mentally disturbed troll. They're blaming the second attack on a hate group. However, the Universal Brotherhood's security guards at both chapterhouses were taken out by narcojet darts and neurostun gas. That seems rather sophisticated for a homeless troll, and it seems like a soft touch for a hate group.
 
Anonymous tip: Have you checked out the ammo that the Universal Brotherhood security guards use? Their machine pistols are loaded with armor piercing discarding sabot rounds. How does a non-profit charity group get the legal clearance to use those?
 
In order to get the megacorps in on the action, it was time to start selling flesh forms to the megacorps "procurement specialists."
 
Happy Jack: "No-Step, you get to adopt a new identity and sell the flesh forms to the corps."
No-Step: "Why am I getting this job?"
Happy Jack: "Most of the megacorps who deal in biotech are Japanese owned. Those guys are notoriously biased against metahumans. You can disguise yourself as an overweight human. I'm three meters tall. I can only disguise myself as another troll."
 
No-Step adopted the alternate identity of Gomi No ShuShu, human, American-born, of Japanese descent.
 
Gomi No ShuShu: (to a prospective client) "I understand you're generally in the market for biological samples. Would you be in the market for samples of a previously unknown paranormal animal?"
Yamametsu procurement specialist: "First, you would need to persuade me that you had discovered a paranormal species that we're not already in possession of."
Gomi No ShuShu: (showing the buyer a picture of the flesh form insect spirit) "This is what my associates killed. We believe that it's a paranormal species, rather than genetic engineered. However, I suspect you would be interested in it either way."
Yamametsu procurement specialist: "Does it have anything that would make it commercially valuable?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "Security applications. It was being used to guard the sensitive areas in a building."
Yamametsu procurement specialist: "What size sample did your people get?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "Two nearly-complete bodies. And they've been kept refrigerated."
Yamametsu procurement specialist: "Nearly complete?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "There's a few bullet holes in each."
 
Yamametsu procurement specialist: "I can't authorize a very large payment, since this could still turn out to be worthless."
Gomi No ShuShu: "My associates said they would accept a modest payment for these preliminary samples."
Yamametsu procurement specialist: "Preliminary samples...?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "They're confident that you'll want to purchase a live sample later, and they intend to charge a much higher price for that."
Yamametsu procurement specialist: "They have a live sample?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "They know where to get one."
 
Afterwards...
 
Happy Jack: "Good work No-Step. Now you just need to sell some to MCT, Renraku and Shiawase." (long pause) "And you also need to sell the mostly-human flesh forms to Saeder Krupp."
No-Step: "Nobody is going to think that the mostly-human ones are paranormal animals."
Happy Jack: "Of course not. That's why you're selling them as examples of a new form of bioware."
Dent: "That's risky. Ripping off Saeder Krupp is a good way to get on Lofwyr's bad side."
Happy Jack: "Lofwyr's been around at least since the 4th Age. I'm going to bet he knows exactly what a flesh form is. This is my way of sending him a message."
Dent: "If he ever sees it."
Happy Jack: "Lofwyr's the micromanager from hell. He'll find out about it."
 
Unsurprisingly, a couple weeks after Saeder Krupp bought the specimens (for 5,000 nuyen apiece), No-Step / Gomi No ShuShu received a voice mail from a Saeder Krupp fixer. Byte Force set up an untraceable call.
 
Han Brackhaus of Saeder Krupp: "I am willing to pay 10,000 nuyen to learn where you acquired the specimens you sold us."
Gomi No ShuShu: "Let me discuss your offer with my associate."
No-Step put Brackhaus on hold and had a quick discussion with Happy Jack.
Gomi No ShuShu: "My associate tells me that if all you want is the location of those three specimens, he will provide it for free ... and he will refund 10,000 nuyen of the 15,000 nuyen deposit you paid me."
Hans Brackhaus: "That's a ... surprising offer."
Gomi No ShuShu: "However, if you want to know every location where he personally  encountered 'specimens' like that, he will keep the deposit and require an additional 35,000 nuyen. If you want you want his list of suspected locations, it will cost 250,000."
Hans Brackhaus: "Why would I consider paying that much for suspected locations?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "Based on his sampling, he says that he's 95% confident that over 50% of them have specimens at that location."
Hans Brackhaus: "That's still a large amount of money for 'suspected' locations."
Gomi No ShuShu: "It's a large number of suspected locations."
Hans Brackhaus: (long pause) "How large?"
Gomi No ShuShu: "A three digit number."
Hans Brackhaus: "I ... I'll need to get back in touch."

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
Danial Simpson (NPC): a pudgy, middle-aged junior exec at Renraku; was given his position by his father-in-law
Victoria Delling (NPC): Danial Simpson's mistress; went missing after receiving a unique necklace called Blood
Detective Bambra (NPC): a private investigator hired by Danial Simpson's wife to find evidence of Danial Simpson's affair
Universal Brotherhood ("UB"): a charitable fringe religious organization; secretly controlled by insect spirits

HMHVV: Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus
 

Missing Blood, part 9 - Aftermath
 
The raid on the Universal Brotherhood's Redmond chapterhouse was successful. The team had recovered the missing necklace, Blood. They had found the missing girl, Victoria Delling, and had put her out of her (insect possessed) misery. And the Redmond chapterhouse was being investigated for a HMHVV outbreak ... which would be a seriously nasty thing ... except when compared to their actual activities.
 
Byte Force: (posting to a Humanis Policlub forum under the handle 'VampireHater') "You won't believe what those bleeding-heart metahuman-loving slags at the Universal Brotherhood are doing. They're helping HMHVV infected monsters like loup-garou, dour and nosferatu by hiding them in their chapterhouses. Not only are those idiots going to get themselves killed, they're going to get a bunch of decent humans sucked dry because they think those monsters have 'rights'. Anything that believes that people are food has rights. The right to DIE!!!!!"
Eye Spy: (reading what Byte Force had posted) "If Humanis tries to tangle with the UB, they're going to get slaughtered."
Audacity Jane: "Awww ... you're breaking my heart."
 
Then there was Judy, the human form fly spirit captured in the raid.
 
Dent: "I don't want to read that thing's mind. It could drive me insane."
Happy Jack: "I thought shamans could take control of spirits. You could just compel her to tell us what we want to know."
Dent: "In order to take control a spirit, I have to wrest control away from the summoner."
Happy Jack: "The summoner ... you mean that thing I killed in the basement last night? I don't think it will be putting up much of a struggle."
Dent: "Um ... this could be easier than I originally thought."
 
The afternoon after the raid, No-Step disguised himself as Detective Bambra in order to update Mrs. Simpson on his investigation into her husband's affair. In order to cover for the flaws in his disguise, he made himself look bruised and swolen.
 
Mrs. Simpson: "What happened to you?"
No-Step / Detective Bambra: "Your husband's mistress ... some of her friends objected to my investigation."
Mrs. Simpson: "Do you have evidence that I can use this time?"
No-Step / Detective Bambra: "Absolutely. I used the bug you planted to pull a message off your husband's answering machine."
No-Step showed Mrs. Simpson the vidphone message Victoria Delling had left for Danial thanking him for the necklace ... while wearing the very distinctive necklace, Blood.
No-Step / Detective Bambra: "I think I was able to erase the message before your husband saw it. He'll be completely surprised when you show it to him."
Mrs. Simpson: "I'm going to play it for him right after he gives me that whore's necklace."
No-Step / Detective Bambra: "About that ..." (handing her a box) "... I was able to get to the necklace before he was."
Mrs. Simpson: "Thank you sooo much. I think I'm going to give him divorce papers as an anniversary present." (eyes flashing with anger) "I want to see how he tries to weasel out of all of this."
 
Jonathan Bridges, on the other hand, had to apologize to Danial for failing to recover the necklace.
 
Danial Simpson: "Did you get it?"
Jonathan Bridges: "I'm afraid our investigation hit a dead end. I believe we found Ms. Delling's body, but we would need a DNA test to confirm that."
Danial Simpson: "She's ... she's dead?"
Jonathan Bridges: "Someone tried to dispose of her body by feeding it to the ghouls. That's why I'm not 100% certain that it was her."
Danial Simpson: "And there was no sign of the necklace?"
Jonathan Bridges: "It's a rough neighborhood. If anyone knew she had it, they may have killed her for it."
Danial looked aghast.
Jonathan Bridges: "We snooped around at the local fences, but any competent fence would be smart enough to just try to sell the stones, which are far harder to trace."
 
No-Step: (after Jonathan/Jack had returned from talking to Danial) "Do you have any idea what you've just done?!?"
Happy Jack: "Yep."
No-Step: "He's going to think his wife murdered Victoria!"
Happy Jack: "I certainly hope he's smart enough to reach that conclusion. I practically drew him a map."
No-Step: "He's probably going to murder her!"
Happy Jack: "And if he does, he's no longer going to be a junior exec at Renraku. He'll be a convict ... and safely out of the reach of the UB."
No-Step: "You're setting him up in order to ... save him?"
Happy Jack: "Nah. I'm setting him up in order to frag with the UB."
 
Hours later the leader of the UB, Galen Walker, gave a press conference in front of the Octagon, the largest  UB chapterhouse in Seattle. Byte Force slipped a list of questions onto a couple reporters' PDAs. Dent used his Influence spell to ensure they would ask the questions at the press conference.
 
Galen Walker: "... According to what we have learned from the Lone Star officers who investigated the tragedy at our Redmond chapterhouse, the attacker was a homeless troll, probably suffering from some form of mental illness. Contrary to initial reports, there is no indication this troll suffered from HMHVV. He was the chapterhouse's soup kitchen, receiving dinner when the attack began. Despite yesterday's tragedy, the Universal Brotherhood remains dedicated to helping the poor."
reporter #1: "Was this incident in any way related to the murder of Madame Ulishia four days ago?"
Galen Walker: "Who?"
reporter #1: "She was a member of the Redmond chapterhouse who was murdered in her home. Are you saying that there's no connection?"
Galen Walker: "Not that I'm aware of."
reporter #2: "Is there any connection to the murder of Christine Simpson? She was murdered just over an hour ago at the Glass Onion."
Galen Walker: "I'm afraid that this is the first that I've heard of this. She was a member?"
reporter #2: "No. Her husband was a brand new member of the Octogon chapterhouse. He's the one who murdered her in front of a crowd of witnesses."
Galen Walker: "I'm not sure why you believe that there's a connection between these unrelated...."
reporter #1: "What about the attempted murder of Patrick Bambra at his office four days ago? The five men who tried to kill him were all members of the Universal Brotherhood."
Galen Walker: "I'm not sure where you're getting this information...."
reporter #1: "Do you need to confirm that they were Universal Brotherhood members? I have their names."
reporter #2: "Is this level of violence normal for the Universal Brotherhood?"
And that's when Dent and No-Step's swarm of watchers came in for the attack. As a spirit-possessed human form, Galen Walker could see them coming. He made the extremely sensible decision to flee for the safety of the chapterhouse's magickal ward.
Audacity Jane: "Do you want me to pop him?"
Happy Jack: "Hold your fire. Right now, it looks like he ran away from some tough questions. If you kill him, it will look like he ran away from an attack."
No-Step: "He did run away from an attack."
Happy Jack: "An attack that none of the reporters or cameras could see. Let him be the one to try to sell that excuse to the media."

Well, to return to the original question, and speaking as a considerable fan of Call of Cthulhu (the game) and anything written by HPL, I think for me the difference is best described by the word "atmosphere." 
 
Clearly Indiana Jones is a globe-trotting adventurer, in the classic mold of people like Doc Savage (if not so "super-powery"), while the average protagonist of a Cthulhu Mythos story is more like Marcus Brody.  Except that Marcus Brody doesn't know anyone even remotely like Indy, and instead has to deal with the situation on his own.  And except that the situation doesn't involve murdering Nazis stealing an ancient artifact as the primary opponents, but monsters so beyond the average mortal's ability to deal with them that the most frequent recourse for the protagonist is either death (often by suicide) or a rapid descent into madness.  Even when purely mortal cultists are the primary enemy (as in in the eponymous Call of Cthulhu itself, they are actually not considered the worst part of the story; but merely lesser manifestations of the incredible evil and corruption of the primary foe (that being whichever Great Old One the protagonist is being forced to confront).
 
Nor is any of what's going on really "magic" -- even though it may be described that way by mere humans; but instead is a manifestation of Clarke's Law though more focused on mathematics and physics than merely on technology.  Or, to rephrase Clarke's Law:  "Any sufficiently advanced mathematical, geometrical or physical sciences skill is indistinguishable from magic."  Given that HPL was an atheist, his "magical systems" (at least according to his letters) were intended to merely be mysterious manifestations of outre math and scientific understandings -- indeed in Dreams in the Witchhouse, he clearly makes that connection as Walter Gilman both slowly goes mad and increasingly interacts with Keziah and Brown Jenkin as his understanding of "non-Euclidean" geometry grows.
 
So while it would clearly be possible to interpret Indiana Jones adventures in terms of the Cthulhu Mythos, they would cease being the free-wheeling pulp adventures they are, and would instead become dark stories of cosmic horror in which Indy and his friends would be consumed by horrific deaths at the hands of frequently nearly indescribably monsters and beings and the survivors would steadily descend into abject madness more as a defense mechanism than anything else.  Which brings us back to the "atmosphere" argument I launched in the beginning.  In Cthulhu Mythos stories and games, the world is a terrible place, concealing inconceivable evil and terror which can only be "defeated" by nearly impossible efforts, usually costing the protagonist either his life or sanity, and which really only constitutes a minor setback for the entities being opposed.  In Indiana Jones, a single (talented, but basically normal) human opposes and overcomes more common "evils," albeit with many "cliffhanging" opportunities along the way, and with the help of some loyal, but probably not terribly impressive friends.  Indy suffers no real negative consequences of his confrontations with his enemy; he's not driven insane, nor is he killed (though he may take a beating along the way), nor is he left with deeper questions as to the meaning of it all. ("What's that?"  "The Ark of the Covenant."  "The Ark of the Covenant?  Are you sure?"  "Pretty sure." -- and thus a major event in Indy's life is dismissed in one flip exchange.  Whereas in a more Mythos-oriented tale, merely seeing the image might be enough of a shock to send him fleeing from the tunnel he's in towards the more sane light of day.)
 
In game terms, it's why Call of Cthulhu has a "Sanity" mechanism (which will eventually and unavoidably remove any character that physically survives the game through guaranteed madness), and D6, Pulp Hero, and so on doesn't really (though you could certainly add one if you liked).  I note in passing that in Chaosium's house organ for Basic Roleplaying, Uncounted Worlds, they have replacement rules for "Stress" instead of "Sanity" which removes the inevitable descent into madness from the game and replaces it with a more "shock" -like mechanism suitable for more pulpy roleplaying -- and which, unless over-damaged through lack of time to relax and heal, can be completely recovered from with no lasting ill effects.  Whether "Stress" is any more a description of reality than "Sanity" is, I'll leave to the sufferers from PTSD to determine.
 
Anyway, that's my $0.40 worth (that much, because I probably went on about 20 times as long as anyone wanted me to).  ;-)

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
Madame Ulishia (NPC): a fortune teller; had been possessed by an insect spirit and slain by ant spirits
Universal Brotherhood ("UB"): a charitable fringe religious organization
 
Missing Blood, part 6 - The Best Laid Plans
 
The Universal Brotherhood was secretly being controlled by insect spirits. The team had decided to start by taking out the UB's Redmond chapterhouse.
 
Planning the assault:
 
Byte Force: "The UB doesn't have any security systems that connect to the Matrix ... or any other security systems for that matter. I can run a simultaneous assault against their system in order to get at their money, but that's about the extent of it."
Dent: "That's an extremely valuable contribution."
Byte Force: "It might also be a deadly one. If one of their members is connected in the banking business, they could tie that money to us."
Happy Jack: "That's what money laundering is for. We may give up most of the money, but it becomes nearly impossible to track the money to us."
No-Step: "If they have a person inside the bank, they could find the money launderer as easily as they could find us. I'm sure they'd be willing to torture information out of him."
Happy Jack: "That's why I intend to launder the money through the Yakuza. If the UB wants to tangle with the Yaks in order to get to us, I'm willing to let them start a war."
 
Audacity Jane: (to Dent and No-Step) "Are you sending in spirits like you did when we went after Euphoria?"
Dent: "We can't send in city spirits. It's a hearth spirit domain."
No-Step: "I don't want to summon a hearth spirit in there. We'd get something worse than that abomination you summoned at Madame Ulishia's."
Dent: "And there's a ward around the building, which would keep watcher spirits out."
Happy Jack: "Does it keep them out forever, or do they have to break through it?"
Dent: "They have to break through it ... which is going to alert whomever put it up."
Audacity Jane: "That's fine. If they're busy defending the ward against your spirits, then they're not protecting the targets inside from me."
 
Happy Jack: "I think we need to brainstorm different tricks and tactics to use against them."
Audacity Jane: "We do that for every job."
Happy Jack: "Yes ... but this time is different. According to the investigative reporters, there are over 400 chapterhouses. That means we'll be hitting the UB more than once."
Byte Force: "You think they'll learn our habits."
Dent: "Wait ... Is this all we're going to do from now on? We could spend years fighting them without wiping them out."
Happy Jack: "Consider that incentive to brainstorm some alternate ways to bring them down."
Dent: "..."
 
Byte Force: "I combed through the UB's membership roles for the Redmond chapterhouse. I think they have about 16 security guards per shift. Ex-gang members and ex-street samurai wannabes. No serious muscle."
No-Step: "What about human form insect spirits?"
Byte Force: "That's the good news. Other than Madame Ulishia, they only have one other human form in this chapterhouse. Her name is Judy. She works at the information desk in front."
Audacity Jane: "I think Judy is about to become the victim of random street violence."
Happy Jack: "Or become a casualty of a fatal workplace accident."
 
Audacity Jane: "So are we sneaking in through one of the upper floors?"
Happy Jack: "I'd rather go in through the soup kitchen."
Audacity Jane: "Any excuse for you to play dress up."
Happy Jack: "The homeless carry a lot of crap around with them. That means we can sneak a lot of gear in while looking just like everyone else."
Dent: "But you only get to pull that trick once. After that they'll install security scanners and put more security in the soup kitchens."
Happy Jack: "Yep. Even a basic scanner will set them back 15,000 nuyen. Multiply it by 400 chapterhouses. That's a nice little hit to their cash flow."
No-Step: "That's not much compared to how much nuyen they're pulling in."
Happy Jack: "A few million nuyen here, a few million there ... pretty soon it starts adding up to some real money."