Houston GM

And then there's Don Gunn, the guy giving us our marching orders and Mike's "GMPC" who runs Don Gunn's Guns. He's not in it to make money - he just LOOOOOVES to sell guns. If you're not from around here (we're in Indianapolis) don't worry about not getting that, it's an inside joke.
 
I showed Mike the Base Template in Hero Designer, and he went a little nuts designing Don's eponymous emporium. I don't know what the walls are made of, but they have DEF and BOD scores I'd expect from bank vaults or main battle tanks. Speaking of tanks, there's a tank on the extensive grounds, of a type Mike went out of his way to state that no one would recognize.
 
Titania the Trollop: Are we going to get driving lessons for this thing?
Don: No, you are not getting driving lessons for this tank.
Titania: So it drives itself? Cool!
 
 
Don ("Big Boomstick" to Titania) doesn't know it yet, but Titania is going to hang a basketball hoop on that tank's gun to have a place to practice.
 
Speaking of practice we all got a little target practice on Don's Gun Range, once we argued him into letting us have the ammunition and charging it back to MHI as a training expense. Between Don's attitude and John Lee's, I expect haggling over money will be a major theme.
 
 
So. Our first assignment was to respond to a giant spider infestation in a public park. They attacked one at a time because Mike is getting used to the system and feeling out what would be a challenge vs. what would walk all over us. The last two take off running and jumping through the trees, and we pile in the pickup truck (borrowed from Don) and give chase.
 
John Lee Pettimore III is the only one of us with Combat Driving, so he's driving. He misses the roll by 1. Mike rules that he crashes into a tree.
 
I think someone said "Don's not gonna like that."
 
He (John Lee) fires one last burst at the spiders in hopes of wounding one so it leaks and leaves a trail, but misses. We end up heading in the direction they vanished into, eventually coming out on the north side of the park.
 
Mike, the Game Operations Director: You see no sign of giant spiders. Some passers by are giving you funny looks given that you're carrying heavy weapons. And a boomerang.
 
Titania, to anyone who pauses to stare: Counterterrorism drill. Carry on with your business.
 
We all stand still and shut up and listen for the sound of screams (indicating someone had seen the spiders.) Nothing.
 
Two thirds of the characters are skilled Trackers, but admittedly out of their element, and not even allowed to roll. So Titania whips out her smart phone. We're in Washington DC: There IS surely a spy satellite overhead, it's just a question of hacking into it. With an overhead view, maybe we can spot the spiders.Alas, I fail the roll.
Titania OOC: Okay, I'm going to roll to cover my tracks. (after making that roll) Now I'm indistinguishable from the 10 Chinese and 2 North Korean hackers who were trying to access that same satellite at the same time I was.
 
Reluctantly, we turn back to the damaged truck with three dead giant spiders in back. John Lee calls AAA for a flatbed.
Titania: You realize they're going to come into the park by the same route we took? Meaning they'll see the swollen corpses of two police officers and a couple of ordinary citizens that the spiders got before we showed up?
 
Titania OOC to the G.O.D.: You say the rear of the truck is undamaged? Okay, I'm going to pick it up by the front and pull it to the park entrance so it can be picked up there. There are advantages to being a Troll.
 
John Lee, back on the phone to AAA: Don't come into the park, we're moving it to the entrance. No, I DO still need the flatbed! We can get it to the entrance but no further, trust me.
 
Titania: Yeah, there's no way I'm hauling this thing any further than I have to. (Titania Melungeon is a lazy Trollop. I took an Extra END Limitation on a portion of STR, and a Costs END Limitation on the ENDurance itself - so that every time I expend END, I have to expend 1 extra. I figure my character will be exhausted.)
 
Titania OOC: Before AAA gets here we cover the spiders with a tarp, and I put up the signs.
Mike the G.O.D: Signs?
Titania OOC: Yeah, the ones that say "Temporarily Closed to the Public" and "Exercise in Progress." I know we have signs like that in the truck, hiding the monsters from the public is part of the job description.
Kylie OOC: Then fitness fanatics will see "Exercise in Progress" and come in to join the exercise.
Titania OOC: Really? When I see the word exercise, I turn the other way.
 
 
One of us can ride in the truck. John Lee takes it because he wants to be there when Don sees the truck so he can immediately start negotiating to pay to have it fixed. He figures he wrecked it, he'll pay for it, and he has the Wealth perk (his regular business is profitable apparently.) But he is starting to wonder if monster hunting is going to be a paying sideline.
 
Titania OOC: FlatBED? Bed sounds like where I want to be. After hauling the truck onto it, I lie down there.
Mike: There's no room.
 
Kylie has Direction Sense (why the heck is it called "Bump of Direction" anyway?) and good Navigation skills and is accustomed to hiking for days in the Australian outback, and wants to get to know the city better anyway, so it's obvious how she's getting back to base.
 
Titania is tired and goes to rest under the tree we hit.
 
John Lee gets through his negotiations, and Kylie does her walkabout, and then it's back to me. I get out the smart phone and then log onto the MHI site and look up the bounty for giant spiders, and then for animated trees. (in reality, I had my laptop handy and have the game in PDF.) Then I call Don.
 
Titania: Hello, Don? Yeah, I was looking up the bounties and I can't find the bounty for an animated tree.
Don: Animated tree?!
John Lee OOC: I wish I'd thought of that
Titania: Yeah, the one that saved the giant Australian hunting spiders by jumping in front of us. You saw what it did to the truck? Anyway, do I need to bring the whole tree in for a bounty? (I lean against the tree and begin exerting my Trollop STR, so he can hear it creaking as I start to push it over.)
Don: Leave that tree alone, you can't collect a bounty on it!
Titania: We can't? Anyway, I think I hear the MCB people down by the entrance and I don't want to run into them, I'm going to go catch a bus back to base.
 
Note for the uninitiated: In Monster Hunter International, the MCB is the Monster Control Bureau, a super-secret government agency that licenses and regulates monster bounty hunters, and insists on keeping the public at large completely ignorant of the existence of monsters. My character IS a monster, but I paid points for a Perk to be bounty-exempt, but I still want to keep out of their sight.
 
Kylie OOC: Can you even fit on the bus?
Titania OOC: I have Contortionist. I figure I'll go to the back, sit on one side of the aisle, and stretch my legs into the seat on the other side. On the long ride, I'll be on the smart phone setting up a website to sell Giant Australian Hunting Spider Repellent. I figure if it gets any hits, it's from people who saw our spiders.
John Lee OOC: What are you going to do, sell them grenades as spider repellent?
Titania OOC: No, I figure we show up and tell them WE ARE the giant spider repellent.
 
I'm the last to make it back to base, and start writing up the team's report on the incident. I mention that 5 spiders were spotted, 3 were killed and collected, and the other 2 escaped with the assistance of an animated tree that interfered with the pursuit. I include a suggestion that a bounty be established for such trees, as they are a definite hazard to vehicular traffic.
Mike: Your character is much too smart to believe that.
Me: Did I say she believes it? I said it's what's going in the report. Once that's done, Fiona is taking a nap.
 
 
That's probably enough for now. To be continued...
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary explains that Lucius is sticking to the name Titania in these accounts on the assumption that wanting to be called Fiona is something the Trollop will probably grow out of.

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Mr. Johnson: the name used by/for anonymous individuals hiring shadowrunners
 
The Adventures of Baron Munchmaussen - Getting There is Half the Fun
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
Unlike Drhoz's team, this team of shadowrunners was not hired by a dragon. (At least not directly. With dragons you never know.) Instead, they were hired by a normal Ms. Johnson in Seattle, and flown to Germany on a sub-orbital. From there, they took a train to the village of Schloss Munchmaussen. They were to break into the medieval castle overlooking the village, home to Baron Munchmaussen, an elderly troll. Once inside, they were to steal a rare book and leave a metal briefcase in its place.
 
Eye Spy: "Wait ... his name is actually Baron Munchausen?"
Dent: "He's a hypochondriac."
No-Step: "All the stories about him are greatly exaggerated."
 
Ms. Johnson made the travel arrangements ... and the arrangements for equipment to be provided upon the team's arrival.
 
Byte Force: "I'm taking my cyberdeck with me. I'm not trusting Mr. Johnson to give me a decent deck with useful software."
Eye Spy: "Isn't customs going to confiscate your cyberdeck? It's illegal."
Byte Force: "A legal cyberdeck has matrix identifiers. An illegal cyberdeck doesn't. My cyberdeck is a custom job. I can change it from a legal deck to an illegal deck by flipping a switch."
Eye Spy: "What if they look at the programs?"
Byte Force: "They're not going to recognize anything. I wrote them myself."
Dent: "Byte Force doesn't believe in documenting his software."
Byte Force: "It's called 'code' for a reason."
 
Byte Force did some recon through the Matrix prior to the trip.
 
Byte Force: "Baron Munchaussen is a paranoid, not a hypochondriac. The castle is covered in security cameras. There are cameras in all of the hotel rooms. It looks like there are even cameras in all of the private houses."
No-Step: "The walls have ears."
Dent: "The toilets and showers have eyes."
 
Byte Force: "Jack, I found the personnel files for the castle. You might want to look at the Director of Tourism first."
Happy Jack: "Is he an ork or troll?"
Byte Force: "No. She's the Baron's chief of intelligence. She's also a mage."
Audacity Jane: (laughing) "I think I like the Baron. He thinks like me."
 
Byte Force: "I can't quite figure out the castle interior from the camera angles. I could really use some humint."
Happy Jack: "I'll see what I can do. Send me the personnel files for any female orks and trolls on the Baron's staff."
Dent: "The females? Are No-Step and you going in drag?"
Happy Jack: "No. I'm planning on seducing one of the servants, then you can read her mind."
Dent: "..."
Happy Jack: "And I would really prefer to seduce one of the women."
 
Security on flights is a bit different in the Awakened World of 2051. Cyberware can't be confiscated for the duration of the flight. Therefore, passengers with dangerous forms of cyberware are required to wear cyberware restraint cuffs - CRCs. (This assumes that security detects and properly identifies the cyberware.) If the dangerous cyberwear is activated, the cuff applies a taser charge to the wearer. (Nastier versions contain an explosive charge instead.)
 
Eye Spy's player is the most pessimistic gamer I've ever met. She's perpetually convinced that a total party kill is going to happen in the near future.
 
Eye Spy: (while waiting for the flight) "Something terrible is going to happen on this flight, and we're all going to die. The flight is going to crash, or we'll be shot down by a missile, or something. I'm not sure what yet. But just watch."
Happy Jack: "For once, I think you're right to be concerned."
Eye Spy: "You're actually agreeing with me?"
Happy Jack: "Not completely, but we're going into a situation where we lack the ability to respond to a crisis. You can't fly a semi-balistic vehicle. You don't have your drones with you. We don't have weapons. For part of the flight, magick won't work. Accessing the Matrix won't accomplish much. Jane is good at unarmed combat, but she's wearing CRCs."
Audacity Jane: "And part of the flight will be zero-G. It's extremely difficult to fight in that environment unless you have training and experience. I don't."
Eye Spy: "Oh @#$%! This time, we really are all going to die."
 
Hijack - We Should have Seen This Coming (Actually ... We Did)
The hijack started when someone set off a smoke bomb, filling the entire cabin with smoke. Happy Jack grabbed a fire extinguisher, using his spare hand to brace against the ceiling of the cabin (preventing problems with zero-G).
 
Happy Jack: "I don't see any fire."
Audacity Jane: "But there are three of them ... headed this way."
Happy Jack: (cheerfully) "I have a fire extinguisher."
Byte Force: "Are you using that as a rocket?"
Happy Jack: "No. I'm using it as a club."
 
Dent: "They have cyberspurs. How come their CRCs aren't shocking them?"
Happy Jack: "I would complain that they're cheating somehow, but we cheat all the time."
 
The hijackers appeared to be as inexperienced at zero-G combat as the team was. That gave Happy Jack (fully braced) a tremendous advantage. His long arms and "club" gave him an additional reach advantage.
 
Eye Spy: (watching Jack smack the three hijackers around) "Sometimes I forget that you're almost as dangerous as Jane."
 
In the zero-G environment, Jack was able to smack the hijackers flying into the cabin wall for even more damage.
 
Dent (ooc): I'm having flashbacks to Champions.
Happy Jack (ooc): Nah. For Champions I'd need at least six more dice.
 
After the flight, the polizei wanted to interview Happy Jack, due to his pivotal role in thwarting the hijacking. The polizei seemed suspicious of Happy Jack. To complicate matters, Jack got the distinct impression that a polizei mage was using an Analyze Truth spell during the interview.
 
Polizist: "You must be very brave."
Happy Jack: "Not really. Just looking out for myself. If they crashed the sub-orbital, we would all die."
Polizist: "How did you manage to defeat three hijackers all by yourself?"
Happy Jack: "I'm a troll."
Polizist: (long pause) "You were unarmed, against three armed men. Jah?"
Happy Jack: (shrugging) "I had a fire extinguisher."
Polizist: "What made you decide to pick up a fire extinguisher?"
Happy Jack: "The cabin was full of smoke."
Polizist: "How could you tell the hijackers apart from the other passengers?"
Happy Jack: "They were heading for the cockpit, and they had cyberspurs out."
Polizist: "How could you see that, when the cabin was full of smoke?"
Happy Jack: "I'm a troll. I have thermographic vision."
 
The polizei eventually decided that they weren't going to catch Jack in a lie (and the flight attendent insisted he was a hero), so they let him go catch the train with the rest of the team.
 
Each time the train crossed from one petty German kingdom to the next, the passengers had to deal with customs officials and security forces. Finally, in one of the kingdoms, the "security forces" were indistinguishable from organized crime extortionists. They were even shooting their guns in order to intimidate the passengers into paying.
 
Audacity Jane: "Amateurs."
Happy Jack: "Leave the amateurs alone. I would rather pay a reasonable bribe to some amateurs, rather than prove to everyone that we're not."
 
Unfortunately, one of the bandits decided that he wanted Byte Force's cyberdeck.
 
Bandit #1: (in a Bavarian-German dialect) "Give me that."
Happy Jack: "You want what? Oh! You want money. Geld. Geld? Jah, jah?"
Jack stood up, pulled out the team's biggest, heaviest carry-on down from the rack and shoved it into Bandit #1's arms, nearly causing him to drop his gun.
No-Step's watcher spirit: (suddenly appearing behind the bandits) "DROP YOUR WEAPONS. I KILL YOU."
The bandits spun around. One fired a burst (harmlessly) through the watcher spirit. Happy Jack pulled the hardest carry-on off the rack and smashed it down on Bandit #1's head. Simultaneously, Audacity Jane stood up behind Bandit #2, pulled Bandit #2's sidearm from its holster, then used it to shoot Bandit #2 and Bandit #3 in the head.
Audacity Jane: "This car's clear."
Dent: "You should have let me cast a Silence spell. The gunfire will attract the ones in the rest of the train."
Audacity Jane: "These amateurs keep shooting their own guns in order to intimidate people. As long as I space my shots out, they aren't going to realize that I'm shooting their guns instead."
 
A second group of armed men showed up and started attacking the group extorting the passengers.
 
Audacity Jane: (as the team ducked down to avoid being struck by stray rounds) "This is very convenient."
Eye Spy: "What part of this do you find convenient?"
Happy Jack: "We no longer have to explain how these three men ended up dead."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Mr. Johnson: the name used by/for anonymous individuals hiring shadowrunners
 
The Adventures of Baron Munchmaussen - Getting There is Half the Fun
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here and here).
 
Unlike Drhoz's team, this team of shadowrunners was not hired by a dragon. (At least not directly. With dragons you never know.) Instead, they were hired by a normal Ms. Johnson in Seattle, and flown to Germany on a sub-orbital. From there, they took a train to the village of Schloss Munchmaussen. They were to break into the medieval castle overlooking the village, home to Baron Munchmaussen, an elderly troll. Once inside, they were to steal a rare book and leave a metal briefcase in its place.
 
Eye Spy: "Wait ... his name is actually Baron Munchausen?"
Dent: "He's a hypochondriac."
No-Step: "All the stories about him are greatly exaggerated."
 
Ms. Johnson made the travel arrangements ... and the arrangements for equipment to be provided upon the team's arrival.
 
Byte Force: "I'm taking my cyberdeck with me. I'm not trusting Mr. Johnson to give me a decent deck with useful software."
Eye Spy: "Isn't customs going to confiscate your cyberdeck? It's illegal."
Byte Force: "A legal cyberdeck has matrix identifiers. An illegal cyberdeck doesn't. My cyberdeck is a custom job. I can change it from a legal deck to an illegal deck by flipping a switch."
Eye Spy: "What if they look at the programs?"
Byte Force: "They're not going to recognize anything. I wrote them myself."
Dent: "Byte Force doesn't believe in documenting his software."
Byte Force: "It's called 'code' for a reason."
 
Byte Force did some recon through the Matrix prior to the trip.
 
Byte Force: "Baron Munchaussen is a paranoid, not a hypochondriac. The castle is covered in security cameras. There are cameras in all of the hotel rooms. It looks like there are even cameras in all of the private houses."
No-Step: "The walls have ears."
Dent: "The toilets and showers have eyes."
 
Byte Force: "Jack, I found the personnel files for the castle. You might want to look at the Director of Tourism first."
Happy Jack: "Is he an ork or troll?"
Byte Force: "No. She's the Baron's chief of intelligence. She's also a mage."
Audacity Jane: (laughing) "I think I like the Baron. He thinks like me."
 
Byte Force: "I can't quite figure out the castle interior from the camera angles. I could really use some humint."
Happy Jack: "I'll see what I can do. Send me the personnel files for any female orks and trolls on the Baron's staff."
Dent: "The females? Are No-Step and you going in drag?"
Happy Jack: "No. I'm planning on seducing one of the servants, then you can read her mind."
Dent: "..."
Happy Jack: "And I would really prefer to seduce one of the women."
 
Security on flights is a bit different in the Awakened World of 2051. Cyberware can't be confiscated for the duration of the flight. Therefore, passengers with dangerous forms of cyberware are required to wear cyberware restraint cuffs - CRCs. (This assumes that security detects and properly identifies the cyberware.) If the dangerous cyberwear is activated, the cuff applies a taser charge to the wearer. (Nastier versions contain an explosive charge instead.)
 
Eye Spy's player is the most pessimistic gamer I've ever met. She's perpetually convinced that a total party kill is going to happen in the near future.
 
Eye Spy: (while waiting for the flight) "Something terrible is going to happen on this flight, and we're all going to die. The flight is going to crash, or we'll be shot down by a missile, or something. I'm not sure what yet. But just watch."
Happy Jack: "For once, I think you're right to be concerned."
Eye Spy: "You're actually agreeing with me?"
Happy Jack: "Not completely, but we're going into a situation where we lack the ability to respond to a crisis. You can't fly a semi-balistic vehicle. You don't have your drones with you. We don't have weapons. For part of the flight, magick won't work. Accessing the Matrix won't accomplish much. Jane is good at unarmed combat, but she's wearing CRCs."
Audacity Jane: "And part of the flight will be zero-G. It's extremely difficult to fight in that environment unless you have training and experience. I don't."
Eye Spy: "Oh @#$%! This time, we really are all going to die."
 
Hijack - We Should have Seen This Coming (Actually ... We Did)
The hijack started when someone set off a smoke bomb, filling the entire cabin with smoke. Happy Jack grabbed a fire extinguisher, using his spare hand to brace against the ceiling of the cabin (preventing problems with zero-G).
 
Happy Jack: "I don't see any fire."
Audacity Jane: "But there are three of them ... headed this way."
Happy Jack: (cheerfully) "I have a fire extinguisher."
Byte Force: "Are you using that as a rocket?"
Happy Jack: "No. I'm using it as a club."
 
Dent: "They have cyberspurs. How come their CRCs aren't shocking them?"
Happy Jack: "I would complain that they're cheating somehow, but we cheat all the time."
 
The hijackers appeared to be as inexperienced at zero-G combat as the team was. That gave Happy Jack (fully braced) a tremendous advantage. His long arms and "club" gave him an additional reach advantage.
 
Eye Spy: (watching Jack smack the three hijackers around) "Sometimes I forget that you're almost as dangerous as Jane."
 
In the zero-G environment, Jack was able to smack the hijackers flying into the cabin wall for even more damage.
 
Dent (ooc): I'm having flashbacks to Champions.
Happy Jack (ooc): Nah. For Champions I'd need at least six more dice.
 
After the flight, the polizei wanted to interview Happy Jack, due to his pivotal role in thwarting the hijacking. The polizei seemed suspicious of Happy Jack. To complicate matters, Jack got the distinct impression that a polizei mage was using an Analyze Truth spell during the interview.
 
Polizist: "You must be very brave."
Happy Jack: "Not really. Just looking out for myself. If they crashed the sub-orbital, we would all die."
Polizist: "How did you manage to defeat three hijackers all by yourself?"
Happy Jack: "I'm a troll."
Polizist: (long pause) "You were unarmed, against three armed men. Jah?"
Happy Jack: (shrugging) "I had a fire extinguisher."
Polizist: "What made you decide to pick up a fire extinguisher?"
Happy Jack: "The cabin was full of smoke."
Polizist: "How could you tell the hijackers apart from the other passengers?"
Happy Jack: "They were heading for the cockpit, and they had cyberspurs out."
Polizist: "How could you see that, when the cabin was full of smoke?"
Happy Jack: "I'm a troll. I have thermographic vision."
 
The polizei eventually decided that they weren't going to catch Jack in a lie (and the flight attendent insisted he was a hero), so they let him go catch the train with the rest of the team.
 
Each time the train crossed from one petty German kingdom to the next, the passengers had to deal with customs officials and security forces. Finally, in one of the kingdoms, the "security forces" were indistinguishable from organized crime extortionists. They were even shooting their guns in order to intimidate the passengers into paying.
 
Audacity Jane: "Amateurs."
Happy Jack: "Leave the amateurs alone. I would rather pay a reasonable bribe to some amateurs, rather than prove to everyone that we're not."
 
Unfortunately, one of the bandits decided that he wanted Byte Force's cyberdeck.
 
Bandit #1: (in a Bavarian-German dialect) "Give me that."
Happy Jack: "You want what? Oh! You want money. Geld. Geld? Jah, jah?"
Jack stood up, pulled out the team's biggest, heaviest carry-on down from the rack and shoved it into Bandit #1's arms, nearly causing him to drop his gun.
No-Step's watcher spirit: (suddenly appearing behind the bandits) "DROP YOUR WEAPONS. I KILL YOU."
The bandits spun around. One fired a burst (harmlessly) through the watcher spirit. Happy Jack pulled the hardest carry-on off the rack and smashed it down on Bandit #1's head. Simultaneously, Audacity Jane stood up behind Bandit #2, pulled Bandit #2's sidearm from its holster, then used it to shoot Bandit #2 and Bandit #3 in the head.
Audacity Jane: "This car's clear."
Dent: "You should have let me cast a Silence spell. The gunfire will attract the ones in the rest of the train."
Audacity Jane: "These amateurs keep shooting their own guns in order to intimidate people. As long as I space my shots out, they aren't going to realize that I'm shooting their guns instead."
 
A second group of armed men showed up and started attacking the group extorting the passengers.
 
Audacity Jane: (as the team ducked down to avoid being struck by stray rounds) "This is very convenient."
Eye Spy: "What part of this do you find convenient?"
Happy Jack: "We no longer have to explain how these three men ended up dead."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Charlie (NPC): a fixer acting on behalf of an unknown employer
Humanis Policlub: a group of human supremacists
 
Association Para Noblis
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Meeting with the fixer:
 
Charlie: "Have you ever heard of the Association Para-Noblis?"
Jonathan Bridges: "They're an elf-poser gang with corporate backing."
Charlie: "The APN has been murdering elves who don't believe in their 'Elven ideal' of skipping through the meadows while playing a fragging lute. My client wants them eliminated."
Jonathan Bridges: "They actually like lute music?"
 
The client wanted the six core members of APN killed, the tips of their (fake, surgically altered) ears cut off, and an envelope left behind in the leader's lap.
 
No-Step: "I'm not happy about doing wetwork, even against the APN."
Audacity Jane: "Don't worry. I'll do the wetwork."
Byte Force: "Let's keep the deaths to a minimum. Dead bodies leave behind living relatives ... and those tend to carry a grudge."
Audacity Jane: "Which may explain who is funding this job."
Happy Jack: "So we pin this on someone else. That way any retaliation is aimed at them, not us."
No-Step: "Humanis Policlub must hate the APN. They'll make the perfect scapegoat."
Eye Spy: "I'm not too fond of Humanis either."
 
The envelope contained a page from a book that the team had stolen on a previous mission. But since the author of the book was a prominent elven power player, Humanis Policlub didn't like him either.
 
Eye Spy: "I just had a horrible thought. What if we actually are working for Humanis?"
Happy Jack: "Then they're paying us to frame them for the crime they're actually responsible for."
 
Planning the strategy.
 
Audacity Jane: "Let's hit them during their weekly meetings."
Dent: "There will be over a hundred of them there at that time."
Audacity Jane: "But almost all of them will be in the same room. We can sneak in through the empty second floor, kill the electricity, then fill the meeting room with smoke and gas grenades."
Byte Force: "Normal humans, in a dark, smoke-filled room. They'll be sitting ... well ... sleeping ducks."
 
Happy Jack: "The client may believe that eliminating the leaders will eliminate the gang, but I have my doubts."
Audacity Jane: "Are we going for 'scorched earth'?"
Happy Jack: "I was thinking more along the lines of 'thoroughly plundered'."
 
The main assault went pretty much as planned. The team broke in through the empty second floor, snuck downstairs, and quietly dispatched a few APN members who weren't in the meeting. Then they killed the power, kicked open the door to the meeting hall, and filled the room with NeuroStun gas and smoke. The hearth spririts added their Confusion power to the normal confusion caused by the assault. Only a few people were still standing after the first blitz. They were quickly dropped by the follow-up.
 
GM: I would suspect that you guys read the module in advance ... except this is a fairly normal plan for you.
No-Step (ooc): Rock, paper, scissors kind of mismatch?
GM: Only two of them could see through the darkness and smoke. Only two of them could safely breath the gas. Nobody could do both.
 
During the raid, the runners found a little girl hiding under a couch. No-Step disguised himself as a human, then went to talk to her. Happy Jack was careful to stay out of the girl's line-of-sight.
 
No-Step: (crouching down to peer under the couch) "Are you okay, dear?"
little girl: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm a Lone Star officer."
little girl: "You don't look like a cop."
No-Step: "That's because we're the SWAT team."
little girl: "Are you hurting the people who live here?"
Happy Jack: (speaking from outside the girl's line of sight)  "No. There's a barghest loose in the building, and we're trying to catch it." (pause) "The barghest is too big to fit under the couch, so you should hide there until it's safe to come out."
little girl: "I'm scared."
Happy Jack: "Just a minute. I have something that can help you."
Jack left for a minute, came back, and rolled a small spray to the little girl under the couch.
Happy Jack: "That's a bottle of barghest repellant. If the barghest comes in here, spray that and it will run away."
No-Step: (whispering to Jack as they left the room) "You didn't give that little girl a can of mace, did you?"
Happy Jack: (whispering back) "Don't be ridiculous. I found a thing of mint breath spray in one of the posers' pockets. I gave that to her."
 
The little girl wanted the team to save The Red Woman, who turned out to be one of the six gang leaders. Dent used Mind Probe on her, as well as on the other gang leaders.
 
Dent: "Nasty. I feel like I've been swimming in filth."
Eye Spy: "Don't you normally enjoy that?"
Dent: "They've been killing elves for the last couple years. Apparently Red is just beginning to question the morality of killing elves in order to 'save' them."
Eye Spy: "She's such a sweetheart. Doesn't that mentality give you a warm fuzzy feeling?"
Audacity Jane: "What kind of psychopath kills people in order to save them?"
Everyone turned and looked at Audacity Jane.
Audacity Jane: "What? I kill people in order to get paid. I don't try to convince myself that it's for their benefit."
 
No-Step: "I don't want the little girl to find a bunch of dead bodies. Particularly not the body of the Red Woman."
Audacity Jane: "No problem. I have practice making dead bodies disappear."
 
In addition, the Mind Probe gave Dent the account number and passcodes to the corporate funds that had been funneled to the APN. Byte Force also drained the gang members' personal credsticks.
 
Dent: "Too bad the money launderer is going to keep most of the money."
Byte Force: "On the bright side, the APN isn't going to keep any of their money."
 
And then there was the little matter of plunder.
 
No-Step: "If it's not nailed down, it's ours."
Happy Jack: "And if I can pry it loose, it's not nailed down."
 
Audacity Jane: "I found the APN's plans for attacking a bunch of high-tech elvish groups."
Happy Jack: "That's valuable. I can sell those plans to the intended targets."
Byte Force: "I doubt the plans are still viable, now that we've stolen all of the APN's weapons."
Audacity Jane: "That just means the APN's enemies will have an easier time when they launch a preemptive strike."
 
The APN leader's body was left on the stage of the meeting room, propped up against the wall. The words "ELF-LOVING PERVERT" were spray-painted above his head. His fake ear-tips were removed. The envelope was left in his lap, as ordered. Prior to the mission, Byte Force found a video of a Humanis Policlub demagogue ranting about elf posers. The video was burned onto a chip, which was left on top of the envelope.
 
When the rank and file members awoke, the other five core members were missing. If anyone wanted to find them they would have to pump the stomachs of a pack of ghouls. Not only was the APN missing many of its major assets, many other assets had been severely vandalized. With any luck, the corporate backer would write the APN off as a loss, rather than expend the funds to rebuild them.
 
In addition to the nuyen drained from the APN's account & credsticks, the plunder included dozens of SMGs, cases of grenades, some rocket launchers, several nice motorcycles and a lot of high-end audio-visual equipment.
 
Dent: "The weapons and grenades will sell really well on the black market, but we're going to get stiffed when we fence the AV equipment."
Happy Jack: "Fence it? We're not selling it. We just got a free home-entertainment system."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Charlie (NPC): a fixer acting on behalf of an unknown employer
Humanis Policlub: a group of human supremacists
 
Association Para Noblis
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Meeting with the fixer:
 
Charlie: "Have you ever heard of the Association Para-Noblis?"
Jonathan Bridges: "They're an elf-poser gang with corporate backing."
Charlie: "The APN has been murdering elves who don't believe in their 'Elven ideal' of skipping through the meadows while playing a fragging lute. My client wants them eliminated."
Jonathan Bridges: "They actually like lute music?"
 
The client wanted the six core members of APN killed, the tips of their (fake, surgically altered) ears cut off, and an envelope left behind in the leader's lap.
 
No-Step: "I'm not happy about doing wetwork, even against the APN."
Audacity Jane: "Don't worry. I'll do the wetwork."
Byte Force: "Let's keep the deaths to a minimum. Dead bodies leave behind living relatives ... and those tend to carry a grudge."
Audacity Jane: "Which may explain who is funding this job."
Happy Jack: "So we pin this on someone else. That way any retaliation is aimed at them, not us."
No-Step: "Humanis Policlub must hate the APN. They'll make the perfect scapegoat."
Eye Spy: "I'm not too fond of Humanis either."
 
The envelope contained a page from a book that the team had stolen on a previous mission. But since the author of the book was a prominent elven power player, Humanis Policlub didn't like him either.
 
Eye Spy: "I just had a horrible thought. What if we actually are working for Humanis?"
Happy Jack: "Then they're paying us to frame them for the crime they're actually responsible for."
 
Planning the strategy.
 
Audacity Jane: "Let's hit them during their weekly meetings."
Dent: "There will be over a hundred of them there at that time."
Audacity Jane: "But almost all of them will be in the same room. We can sneak in through the empty second floor, kill the electricity, then fill the meeting room with smoke and gas grenades."
Byte Force: "Normal humans, in a dark, smoke-filled room. They'll be sitting ... well ... sleeping ducks."
 
Happy Jack: "The client may believe that eliminating the leaders will eliminate the gang, but I have my doubts."
Audacity Jane: "Are we going for 'scorched earth'?"
Happy Jack: "I was thinking more along the lines of 'thoroughly plundered'."
 
The main assault went pretty much as planned. The team broke in through the empty second floor, snuck downstairs, and quietly dispatched a few APN members who weren't in the meeting. Then they killed the power, kicked open the door to the meeting hall, and filled the room with NeuroStun gas and smoke. The hearth spririts added their Confusion power to the normal confusion caused by the assault. Only a few people were still standing after the first blitz. They were quickly dropped by the follow-up.
 
GM: I would suspect that you guys read the module in advance ... except this is a fairly normal plan for you.
No-Step (ooc): Rock, paper, scissors kind of mismatch?
GM: Only two of them could see through the darkness and smoke. Only two of them could safely breath the gas. Nobody could do both.
 
During the raid, the runners found a little girl hiding under a couch. No-Step disguised himself as a human, then went to talk to her. Happy Jack was careful to stay out of the girl's line-of-sight.
 
No-Step: (crouching down to peer under the couch) "Are you okay, dear?"
little girl: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm a Lone Star officer."
little girl: "You don't look like a cop."
No-Step: "That's because we're the SWAT team."
little girl: "Are you hurting the people who live here?"
Happy Jack: (speaking from outside the girl's line of sight)  "No. There's a barghest loose in the building, and we're trying to catch it." (pause) "The barghest is too big to fit under the couch, so you should hide there until it's safe to come out."
little girl: "I'm scared."
Happy Jack: "Just a minute. I have something that can help you."
Jack left for a minute, came back, and rolled a small spray to the little girl under the couch.
Happy Jack: "That's a bottle of barghest repellant. If the barghest comes in here, spray that and it will run away."
No-Step: (whispering to Jack as they left the room) "You didn't give that little girl a can of mace, did you?"
Happy Jack: (whispering back) "Don't be ridiculous. I found a thing of mint breath spray in one of the posers' pockets. I gave that to her."
 
The little girl wanted the team to save The Red Woman, who turned out to be one of the six gang leaders. Dent used Mind Probe on her, as well as on the other gang leaders.
 
Dent: "Nasty. I feel like I've been swimming in filth."
Eye Spy: "Don't you normally enjoy that?"
Dent: "They've been killing elves for the last couple years. Apparently Red is just beginning to question the morality of killing elves in order to 'save' them."
Eye Spy: "She's such a sweetheart. Doesn't that mentality give you a warm fuzzy feeling?"
Audacity Jane: "What kind of psychopath kills people in order to save them?"
Everyone turned and looked at Audacity Jane.
Audacity Jane: "What? I kill people in order to get paid. I don't try to convince myself that it's for their benefit."
 
No-Step: "I don't want the little girl to find a bunch of dead bodies. Particularly not the body of the Red Woman."
Audacity Jane: "No problem. I have practice making dead bodies disappear."
 
In addition, the Mind Probe gave Dent the account number and passcodes to the corporate funds that had been funneled to the APN. Byte Force also drained the gang members' personal credsticks.
 
Dent: "Too bad the money launderer is going to keep most of the money."
Byte Force: "On the bright side, the APN isn't going to keep any of their money."
 
And then there was the little matter of plunder.
 
No-Step: "If it's not nailed down, it's ours."
Happy Jack: "And if I can pry it loose, it's not nailed down."
 
Audacity Jane: "I found the APN's plans for attacking a bunch of high-tech elvish groups."
Happy Jack: "That's valuable. I can sell those plans to the intended targets."
Byte Force: "I doubt the plans are still viable, now that we've stolen all of the APN's weapons."
Audacity Jane: "That just means the APN's enemies will have an easier time when they launch a preemptive strike."
 
The APN leader's body was left on the stage of the meeting room, propped up against the wall. The words "ELF-LOVING PERVERT" were spray-painted above his head. His fake ear-tips were removed. The envelope was left in his lap, as ordered. Prior to the mission, Byte Force found a video of a Humanis Policlub demagogue ranting about elf posers. The video was burned onto a chip, which was left on top of the envelope.
 
When the rank and file members awoke, the other five core members were missing. If anyone wanted to find them they would have to pump the stomachs of a pack of ghouls. Not only was the APN missing many of its major assets, many other assets had been severely vandalized. With any luck, the corporate backer would write the APN off as a loss, rather than expend the funds to rebuild them.
 
In addition to the nuyen drained from the APN's account & credsticks, the plunder included dozens of SMGs, cases of grenades, some rocket launchers, several nice motorcycles and a lot of high-end audio-visual equipment.
 
Dent: "The weapons and grenades will sell really well on the black market, but we're going to get stiffed when we fence the AV equipment."
Happy Jack: "Fence it? We're not selling it. We just got a free home-entertainment system."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Charlie (NPC): a fixer acting on behalf of an unknown employer
Humanis Policlub: a group of human supremacists
 
Association Para Noblis
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Meeting with the fixer:
 
Charlie: "Have you ever heard of the Association Para-Noblis?"
Jonathan Bridges: "They're an elf-poser gang with corporate backing."
Charlie: "The APN has been murdering elves who don't believe in their 'Elven ideal' of skipping through the meadows while playing a fragging lute. My client wants them eliminated."
Jonathan Bridges: "They actually like lute music?"
 
The client wanted the six core members of APN killed, the tips of their (fake, surgically altered) ears cut off, and an envelope left behind in the leader's lap.
 
No-Step: "I'm not happy about doing wetwork, even against the APN."
Audacity Jane: "Don't worry. I'll do the wetwork."
Byte Force: "Let's keep the deaths to a minimum. Dead bodies leave behind living relatives ... and those tend to carry a grudge."
Audacity Jane: "Which may explain who is funding this job."
Happy Jack: "So we pin this on someone else. That way any retaliation is aimed at them, not us."
No-Step: "Humanis Policlub must hate the APN. They'll make the perfect scapegoat."
Eye Spy: "I'm not too fond of Humanis either."
 
The envelope contained a page from a book that the team had stolen on a previous mission. But since the author of the book was a prominent elven power player, Humanis Policlub didn't like him either.
 
Eye Spy: "I just had a horrible thought. What if we actually are working for Humanis?"
Happy Jack: "Then they're paying us to frame them for the crime they're actually responsible for."
 
Planning the strategy.
 
Audacity Jane: "Let's hit them during their weekly meetings."
Dent: "There will be over a hundred of them there at that time."
Audacity Jane: "But almost all of them will be in the same room. We can sneak in through the empty second floor, kill the electricity, then fill the meeting room with smoke and gas grenades."
Byte Force: "Normal humans, in a dark, smoke-filled room. They'll be sitting ... well ... sleeping ducks."
 
Happy Jack: "The client may believe that eliminating the leaders will eliminate the gang, but I have my doubts."
Audacity Jane: "Are we going for 'scorched earth'?"
Happy Jack: "I was thinking more along the lines of 'thoroughly plundered'."
 
The main assault went pretty much as planned. The team broke in through the empty second floor, snuck downstairs, and quietly dispatched a few APN members who weren't in the meeting. Then they killed the power, kicked open the door to the meeting hall, and filled the room with NeuroStun gas and smoke. The hearth spririts added their Confusion power to the normal confusion caused by the assault. Only a few people were still standing after the first blitz. They were quickly dropped by the follow-up.
 
GM: I would suspect that you guys read the module in advance ... except this is a fairly normal plan for you.
No-Step (ooc): Rock, paper, scissors kind of mismatch?
GM: Only two of them could see through the darkness and smoke. Only two of them could safely breath the gas. Nobody could do both.
 
During the raid, the runners found a little girl hiding under a couch. No-Step disguised himself as a human, then went to talk to her. Happy Jack was careful to stay out of the girl's line-of-sight.
 
No-Step: (crouching down to peer under the couch) "Are you okay, dear?"
little girl: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm a Lone Star officer."
little girl: "You don't look like a cop."
No-Step: "That's because we're the SWAT team."
little girl: "Are you hurting the people who live here?"
Happy Jack: (speaking from outside the girl's line of sight)  "No. There's a barghest loose in the building, and we're trying to catch it." (pause) "The barghest is too big to fit under the couch, so you should hide there until it's safe to come out."
little girl: "I'm scared."
Happy Jack: "Just a minute. I have something that can help you."
Jack left for a minute, came back, and rolled a small spray to the little girl under the couch.
Happy Jack: "That's a bottle of barghest repellant. If the barghest comes in here, spray that and it will run away."
No-Step: (whispering to Jack as they left the room) "You didn't give that little girl a can of mace, did you?"
Happy Jack: (whispering back) "Don't be ridiculous. I found a thing of mint breath spray in one of the posers' pockets. I gave that to her."
 
The little girl wanted the team to save The Red Woman, who turned out to be one of the six gang leaders. Dent used Mind Probe on her, as well as on the other gang leaders.
 
Dent: "Nasty. I feel like I've been swimming in filth."
Eye Spy: "Don't you normally enjoy that?"
Dent: "They've been killing elves for the last couple years. Apparently Red is just beginning to question the morality of killing elves in order to 'save' them."
Eye Spy: "She's such a sweetheart. Doesn't that mentality give you a warm fuzzy feeling?"
Audacity Jane: "What kind of psychopath kills people in order to save them?"
Everyone turned and looked at Audacity Jane.
Audacity Jane: "What? I kill people in order to get paid. I don't try to convince myself that it's for their benefit."
 
No-Step: "I don't want the little girl to find a bunch of dead bodies. Particularly not the body of the Red Woman."
Audacity Jane: "No problem. I have practice making dead bodies disappear."
 
In addition, the Mind Probe gave Dent the account number and passcodes to the corporate funds that had been funneled to the APN. Byte Force also drained the gang members' personal credsticks.
 
Dent: "Too bad the money launderer is going to keep most of the money."
Byte Force: "On the bright side, the APN isn't going to keep any of their money."
 
And then there was the little matter of plunder.
 
No-Step: "If it's not nailed down, it's ours."
Happy Jack: "And if I can pry it loose, it's not nailed down."
 
Audacity Jane: "I found the APN's plans for attacking a bunch of high-tech elvish groups."
Happy Jack: "That's valuable. I can sell those plans to the intended targets."
Byte Force: "I doubt the plans are still viable, now that we've stolen all of the APN's weapons."
Audacity Jane: "That just means the APN's enemies will have an easier time when they launch a preemptive strike."
 
The APN leader's body was left on the stage of the meeting room, propped up against the wall. The words "ELF-LOVING PERVERT" were spray-painted above his head. His fake ear-tips were removed. The envelope was left in his lap, as ordered. Prior to the mission, Byte Force found a video of a Humanis Policlub demagogue ranting about elf posers. The video was burned onto a chip, which was left on top of the envelope.
 
When the rank and file members awoke, the other five core members were missing. If anyone wanted to find them they would have to pump the stomachs of a pack of ghouls. Not only was the APN missing many of its major assets, many other assets had been severely vandalized. With any luck, the corporate backer would write the APN off as a loss, rather than expend the funds to rebuild them.
 
In addition to the nuyen drained from the APN's account & credsticks, the plunder included dozens of SMGs, cases of grenades, some rocket launchers, several nice motorcycles and a lot of high-end audio-visual equipment.
 
Dent: "The weapons and grenades will sell really well on the black market, but we're going to get stiffed when we fence the AV equipment."
Happy Jack: "Fence it? We're not selling it. We just got a free home-entertainment system."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Charlie (NPC): a fixer acting on behalf of an unknown employer
Humanis Policlub: a group of human supremacists
 
Association Para Noblis
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Meeting with the fixer:
 
Charlie: "Have you ever heard of the Association Para-Noblis?"
Jonathan Bridges: "They're an elf-poser gang with corporate backing."
Charlie: "The APN has been murdering elves who don't believe in their 'Elven ideal' of skipping through the meadows while playing a fragging lute. My client wants them eliminated."
Jonathan Bridges: "They actually like lute music?"
 
The client wanted the six core members of APN killed, the tips of their (fake, surgically altered) ears cut off, and an envelope left behind in the leader's lap.
 
No-Step: "I'm not happy about doing wetwork, even against the APN."
Audacity Jane: "Don't worry. I'll do the wetwork."
Byte Force: "Let's keep the deaths to a minimum. Dead bodies leave behind living relatives ... and those tend to carry a grudge."
Audacity Jane: "Which may explain who is funding this job."
Happy Jack: "So we pin this on someone else. That way any retaliation is aimed at them, not us."
No-Step: "Humanis Policlub must hate the APN. They'll make the perfect scapegoat."
Eye Spy: "I'm not too fond of Humanis either."
 
The envelope contained a page from a book that the team had stolen on a previous mission. But since the author of the book was a prominent elven power player, Humanis Policlub didn't like him either.
 
Eye Spy: "I just had a horrible thought. What if we actually are working for Humanis?"
Happy Jack: "Then they're paying us to frame them for the crime they're actually responsible for."
 
Planning the strategy.
 
Audacity Jane: "Let's hit them during their weekly meetings."
Dent: "There will be over a hundred of them there at that time."
Audacity Jane: "But almost all of them will be in the same room. We can sneak in through the empty second floor, kill the electricity, then fill the meeting room with smoke and gas grenades."
Byte Force: "Normal humans, in a dark, smoke-filled room. They'll be sitting ... well ... sleeping ducks."
 
Happy Jack: "The client may believe that eliminating the leaders will eliminate the gang, but I have my doubts."
Audacity Jane: "Are we going for 'scorched earth'?"
Happy Jack: "I was thinking more along the lines of 'thoroughly plundered'."
 
The main assault went pretty much as planned. The team broke in through the empty second floor, snuck downstairs, and quietly dispatched a few APN members who weren't in the meeting. Then they killed the power, kicked open the door to the meeting hall, and filled the room with NeuroStun gas and smoke. The hearth spririts added their Confusion power to the normal confusion caused by the assault. Only a few people were still standing after the first blitz. They were quickly dropped by the follow-up.
 
GM: I would suspect that you guys read the module in advance ... except this is a fairly normal plan for you.
No-Step (ooc): Rock, paper, scissors kind of mismatch?
GM: Only two of them could see through the darkness and smoke. Only two of them could safely breath the gas. Nobody could do both.
 
During the raid, the runners found a little girl hiding under a couch. No-Step disguised himself as a human, then went to talk to her. Happy Jack was careful to stay out of the girl's line-of-sight.
 
No-Step: (crouching down to peer under the couch) "Are you okay, dear?"
little girl: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm a Lone Star officer."
little girl: "You don't look like a cop."
No-Step: "That's because we're the SWAT team."
little girl: "Are you hurting the people who live here?"
Happy Jack: (speaking from outside the girl's line of sight)  "No. There's a barghest loose in the building, and we're trying to catch it." (pause) "The barghest is too big to fit under the couch, so you should hide there until it's safe to come out."
little girl: "I'm scared."
Happy Jack: "Just a minute. I have something that can help you."
Jack left for a minute, came back, and rolled a small spray to the little girl under the couch.
Happy Jack: "That's a bottle of barghest repellant. If the barghest comes in here, spray that and it will run away."
No-Step: (whispering to Jack as they left the room) "You didn't give that little girl a can of mace, did you?"
Happy Jack: (whispering back) "Don't be ridiculous. I found a thing of mint breath spray in one of the posers' pockets. I gave that to her."
 
The little girl wanted the team to save The Red Woman, who turned out to be one of the six gang leaders. Dent used Mind Probe on her, as well as on the other gang leaders.
 
Dent: "Nasty. I feel like I've been swimming in filth."
Eye Spy: "Don't you normally enjoy that?"
Dent: "They've been killing elves for the last couple years. Apparently Red is just beginning to question the morality of killing elves in order to 'save' them."
Eye Spy: "She's such a sweetheart. Doesn't that mentality give you a warm fuzzy feeling?"
Audacity Jane: "What kind of psychopath kills people in order to save them?"
Everyone turned and looked at Audacity Jane.
Audacity Jane: "What? I kill people in order to get paid. I don't try to convince myself that it's for their benefit."
 
No-Step: "I don't want the little girl to find a bunch of dead bodies. Particularly not the body of the Red Woman."
Audacity Jane: "No problem. I have practice making dead bodies disappear."
 
In addition, the Mind Probe gave Dent the account number and passcodes to the corporate funds that had been funneled to the APN. Byte Force also drained the gang members' personal credsticks.
 
Dent: "Too bad the money launderer is going to keep most of the money."
Byte Force: "On the bright side, the APN isn't going to keep any of their money."
 
And then there was the little matter of plunder.
 
No-Step: "If it's not nailed down, it's ours."
Happy Jack: "And if I can pry it loose, it's not nailed down."
 
Audacity Jane: "I found the APN's plans for attacking a bunch of high-tech elvish groups."
Happy Jack: "That's valuable. I can sell those plans to the intended targets."
Byte Force: "I doubt the plans are still viable, now that we've stolen all of the APN's weapons."
Audacity Jane: "That just means the APN's enemies will have an easier time when they launch a preemptive strike."
 
The APN leader's body was left on the stage of the meeting room, propped up against the wall. The words "ELF-LOVING PERVERT" were spray-painted above his head. His fake ear-tips were removed. The envelope was left in his lap, as ordered. Prior to the mission, Byte Force found a video of a Humanis Policlub demagogue ranting about elf posers. The video was burned onto a chip, which was left on top of the envelope.
 
When the rank and file members awoke, the other five core members were missing. If anyone wanted to find them they would have to pump the stomachs of a pack of ghouls. Not only was the APN missing many of its major assets, many other assets had been severely vandalized. With any luck, the corporate backer would write the APN off as a loss, rather than expend the funds to rebuild them.
 
In addition to the nuyen drained from the APN's account & credsticks, the plunder included dozens of SMGs, cases of grenades, some rocket launchers, several nice motorcycles and a lot of high-end audio-visual equipment.
 
Dent: "The weapons and grenades will sell really well on the black market, but we're going to get stiffed when we fence the AV equipment."
Happy Jack: "Fence it? We're not selling it. We just got a free home-entertainment system."

That reminds me of a couple things I pulled in MMOs. (In general, names have been changed ... because I can't remember them.)
 
-------------------------
 
in Everquest (the original one)
 
I was running my bard (Staccato) through West Freeport (one of the starting cities), when I heard the following...
 
Newbie: "Everyone watch out! There's a druid killing noobs in the arena!!!"
Dr00d: "free druid buffs in the arena"
 
I checked the list of players in the zone, and the Dr00d was the second highest level player ... a 34th level druid.
The highest level player was Staccato ... a 60th level bard.
 
The list didn't mention that Staccato worshiped the Tribunal ... the gods of justice.
 
What happens when a follower of the Tribunal discovers that a druid is making false promises in order to trick newbies into getting killed?
What happens when the druid announces that he's located in a free-for-all PvP Arena?
 
Staccato entered the Arena invisibly. The Dr00d didn't notice Staccato until Staccato charmed him. When you're charmed, your avatar responds to all the normal pet commands. Some of them are lots of fun in PvP.
Dr00d: "Staccato is my master."
Dr00d: "Staccato is my master."
Dr00d: "Staccato is my master."
Staccato: "You got that right."   Charm only lasts for 30 seconds, and you have to wait for it to break before you can reapply it. I was a little worried that the Dr00d might escape when charm broke, so I quickly switched over to mezzing him ... because I could do that forever.  
Well, maybe not forever. After about 5 minutes, the Dr00d decided that he could disconnect from the internet, which would disconnect him from the game and log him out. Of course, his avatar stayed in the game for another 15 seconds. How long do you think it takes a 60th level bard to kill a 34th level druid?
 
Less than 15 seconds.
 
Staccato: using guildchat "There was a druid offering free buffs to newbies in the Freeport Arena, then killing them."
Guildmember #1: "That's horrible."
Guildmember #2: "I ought to go there and kill him."
Staccato: "Too late. I beat you to it."
Guildmembers: "lol"
 
Two minutes later...
 
Dr00d: in a private message "u killed me"
Staccato: "Yep. If I catch you killing newbies again, I'll kill you again."
Dr00d: "u made me lose xp."
This was surprising. PvP kills aren't supposed to cause XP loss.
Staccato: "Serves you right."
Dr00d: "i reported u to the gms"
Staccato: "For killing you in the Arena? Let me know when they laugh in your face."
Dr00d: "im goin 2 report u 2 ur guild get u kicked out"
Staccato: in guildchat "The druid is back. He wants to report me to my guild."
GuildOfficer #1: "Give him my name. I want to tell him off."
GuildOfficer #2: "Me too."
GuildOfficer #3: "Definitely give him my name."
Staccato: in a private message to the Dr00d "Several officers are online. Would you like a list of names?"
 
-------------------------
 
In City of Heroes
 
This took place in The Hollows, which is a low-level zone. The Hollows were very dangerous to travel through. There were obstructed lines of sight, so you could run into enemies before you spotted them. The enemies hung out in large groups, capable of quickly killing most newbies. And newbies didn't have advanced travel powers (Fly, Superspeed, Superleap, Teleport), which would help them cross the zone quickly and safely.
 
Newbies could get access to low level travel powers (i.e. Hover, Recall Friend). Even though Hover was painfully slow (slower than walking, and who does that in an MMO) it was popular because it was the only safe way to get yourself across The Hollows. Recall Friend was also useful. It allowed you to teleport your teammates to a spot near you. If you could get to the entrance of the mission (without dying), you could safely bring your teammates to the mission. This saved time, since newbies would sometimes die multiple times when trying to get to missions.
 
Good samaritans would also offer to use Recall Friend to help newbies leave The Hollows. You would invite them to your team, they would teleport you to a spot near them (and they'd be near the zone entrance), and you'd safely leave.
 
On the day this occurred, I was playing my Warshade. Warshades were a prestige class, and they got one perk that set them apart at low levels ... Warshades got the Teleport power for free at level 1. I had also chosen the Recall Friend skill, since it's useful for helping teammates.
 
...
 
I was using Teleport to leave The Hollows one day, and I noticed something strange. Near the entrance, there was someone standing on top of the guard tower, and there were several heroes inside the guard tower. The person on top of the guard tower wasn't too strange. Newbies could hover to get to the roof of the guard tower. But it wasn't possible for people to run, jump or fly through the windows of the guard tower. They weren't big enough.
 
I watched for a few minutes until I figured out what was going on. The windows were big enough to teleport through. One person had used Hover to get to the roof of the guard tower. He then offered to team up with people and use Recall Friend to help them leave The Hollows. The inside of the guard tower was close enough to the roof for him to dump the newbies inside. Once they were there, he would disband from the team and they were stuck.
 
I snuck back out into The Hollows, and pretended like I needed a ride out. He used Recall Friend to dump me into the guard tower -but- as soon as I landed in the guard tower, I used Recall Friend to teleport him right next to me. He disbanded, then realized he was stuck inside with everyone else. I then invited all of his victims to team up with me. I used Teleport to get out of the guard tower, then used Recall Friend to get everyone else out too.
 
Except for the "hero" who had pulled the stunt. I left him there.

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Charlie (NPC): a fixer acting on behalf of an unknown employer
Humanis Policlub: a group of human supremacists
 
Association Para Noblis
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Meeting with the fixer:
 
Charlie: "Have you ever heard of the Association Para-Noblis?"
Jonathan Bridges: "They're an elf-poser gang with corporate backing."
Charlie: "The APN has been murdering elves who don't believe in their 'Elven ideal' of skipping through the meadows while playing a fragging lute. My client wants them eliminated."
Jonathan Bridges: "They actually like lute music?"
 
The client wanted the six core members of APN killed, the tips of their (fake, surgically altered) ears cut off, and an envelope left behind in the leader's lap.
 
No-Step: "I'm not happy about doing wetwork, even against the APN."
Audacity Jane: "Don't worry. I'll do the wetwork."
Byte Force: "Let's keep the deaths to a minimum. Dead bodies leave behind living relatives ... and those tend to carry a grudge."
Audacity Jane: "Which may explain who is funding this job."
Happy Jack: "So we pin this on someone else. That way any retaliation is aimed at them, not us."
No-Step: "Humanis Policlub must hate the APN. They'll make the perfect scapegoat."
Eye Spy: "I'm not too fond of Humanis either."
 
The envelope contained a page from a book that the team had stolen on a previous mission. But since the author of the book was a prominent elven power player, Humanis Policlub didn't like him either.
 
Eye Spy: "I just had a horrible thought. What if we actually are working for Humanis?"
Happy Jack: "Then they're paying us to frame them for the crime they're actually responsible for."
 
Planning the strategy.
 
Audacity Jane: "Let's hit them during their weekly meetings."
Dent: "There will be over a hundred of them there at that time."
Audacity Jane: "But almost all of them will be in the same room. We can sneak in through the empty second floor, kill the electricity, then fill the meeting room with smoke and gas grenades."
Byte Force: "Normal humans, in a dark, smoke-filled room. They'll be sitting ... well ... sleeping ducks."
 
Happy Jack: "The client may believe that eliminating the leaders will eliminate the gang, but I have my doubts."
Audacity Jane: "Are we going for 'scorched earth'?"
Happy Jack: "I was thinking more along the lines of 'thoroughly plundered'."
 
The main assault went pretty much as planned. The team broke in through the empty second floor, snuck downstairs, and quietly dispatched a few APN members who weren't in the meeting. Then they killed the power, kicked open the door to the meeting hall, and filled the room with NeuroStun gas and smoke. The hearth spririts added their Confusion power to the normal confusion caused by the assault. Only a few people were still standing after the first blitz. They were quickly dropped by the follow-up.
 
GM: I would suspect that you guys read the module in advance ... except this is a fairly normal plan for you.
No-Step (ooc): Rock, paper, scissors kind of mismatch?
GM: Only two of them could see through the darkness and smoke. Only two of them could safely breath the gas. Nobody could do both.
 
During the raid, the runners found a little girl hiding under a couch. No-Step disguised himself as a human, then went to talk to her. Happy Jack was careful to stay out of the girl's line-of-sight.
 
No-Step: (crouching down to peer under the couch) "Are you okay, dear?"
little girl: "Who are you?"
No-Step: "I'm a Lone Star officer."
little girl: "You don't look like a cop."
No-Step: "That's because we're the SWAT team."
little girl: "Are you hurting the people who live here?"
Happy Jack: (speaking from outside the girl's line of sight)  "No. There's a barghest loose in the building, and we're trying to catch it." (pause) "The barghest is too big to fit under the couch, so you should hide there until it's safe to come out."
little girl: "I'm scared."
Happy Jack: "Just a minute. I have something that can help you."
Jack left for a minute, came back, and rolled a small spray to the little girl under the couch.
Happy Jack: "That's a bottle of barghest repellant. If the barghest comes in here, spray that and it will run away."
No-Step: (whispering to Jack as they left the room) "You didn't give that little girl a can of mace, did you?"
Happy Jack: (whispering back) "Don't be ridiculous. I found a thing of mint breath spray in one of the posers' pockets. I gave that to her."
 
The little girl wanted the team to save The Red Woman, who turned out to be one of the six gang leaders. Dent used Mind Probe on her, as well as on the other gang leaders.
 
Dent: "Nasty. I feel like I've been swimming in filth."
Eye Spy: "Don't you normally enjoy that?"
Dent: "They've been killing elves for the last couple years. Apparently Red is just beginning to question the morality of killing elves in order to 'save' them."
Eye Spy: "She's such a sweetheart. Doesn't that mentality give you a warm fuzzy feeling?"
Audacity Jane: "What kind of psychopath kills people in order to save them?"
Everyone turned and looked at Audacity Jane.
Audacity Jane: "What? I kill people in order to get paid. I don't try to convince myself that it's for their benefit."
 
No-Step: "I don't want the little girl to find a bunch of dead bodies. Particularly not the body of the Red Woman."
Audacity Jane: "No problem. I have practice making dead bodies disappear."
 
In addition, the Mind Probe gave Dent the account number and passcodes to the corporate funds that had been funneled to the APN. Byte Force also drained the gang members' personal credsticks.
 
Dent: "Too bad the money launderer is going to keep most of the money."
Byte Force: "On the bright side, the APN isn't going to keep any of their money."
 
And then there was the little matter of plunder.
 
No-Step: "If it's not nailed down, it's ours."
Happy Jack: "And if I can pry it loose, it's not nailed down."
 
Audacity Jane: "I found the APN's plans for attacking a bunch of high-tech elvish groups."
Happy Jack: "That's valuable. I can sell those plans to the intended targets."
Byte Force: "I doubt the plans are still viable, now that we've stolen all of the APN's weapons."
Audacity Jane: "That just means the APN's enemies will have an easier time when they launch a preemptive strike."
 
The APN leader's body was left on the stage of the meeting room, propped up against the wall. The words "ELF-LOVING PERVERT" were spray-painted above his head. His fake ear-tips were removed. The envelope was left in his lap, as ordered. Prior to the mission, Byte Force found a video of a Humanis Policlub demagogue ranting about elf posers. The video was burned onto a chip, which was left on top of the envelope.
 
When the rank and file members awoke, the other five core members were missing. If anyone wanted to find them they would have to pump the stomachs of a pack of ghouls. Not only was the APN missing many of its major assets, many other assets had been severely vandalized. With any luck, the corporate backer would write the APN off as a loss, rather than expend the funds to rebuild them.
 
In addition to the nuyen drained from the APN's account & credsticks, the plunder included dozens of SMGs, cases of grenades, some rocket launchers, several nice motorcycles and a lot of high-end audio-visual equipment.
 
Dent: "The weapons and grenades will sell really well on the black market, but we're going to get stiffed when we fence the AV equipment."
Happy Jack: "Fence it? We're not selling it. We just got a free home-entertainment system."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name used by/for anonymous employers
 
A Walk in the Park
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Mr. Johnson wanted to hire the team for an "easy" extraction.
 
Mr. Johnson: "The target is a middle manager. She lives in a medium-security corporate subdivision. It should be a walk in the park. Literally. Every evening she takes a walk in the park, and that's where you'll meet her. Just make certain that she doesn't have a tail and bring her out of there."
Jonathan Bridges: "If it was that simple, she would be able to extract herself."
Mr. Johnson: "The target has even provided the extraction plan for you."
Jonathan Bridges: "Yes. I've added a surcharge for that."
Mr. Johnson: (frowning) "A surcharge?"
Jonathan Bridges: "If my team is going to be constrained by an amateurish plan, there is an extra charge."
Mr. Johnson: (raising his eyebrows) "Amateurish?"
Jonathan Bridges: "There's a code phrase. It includes the words 'Easter Bunny.' That's not the work of a seasoned professional."
 
The team came up with a two-part plan. The heavily wooded park was at the edge of the subdivision. Dent and Jane would sneak past security. Jack and No-Step would pose as city sanitation workers cleaning out the sewer along the target's path back to her condo. Dent would approach her invisibly, give the code phrase, and instruct her to walk to the van. When she reached the van, the pair would get her in the van (using a diversion if needed). Then they would calmly drive out of the suburb.
 
Eye Spy: (scouting with her drones) "I think this is a trap. I see a group of people in heavy armor in the park not far from the target. There's another group of people under some trees on the other side of her. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they're wearing heavy armor too."
No-Step: "As much as I appreciate the warning, it might have been nice to know that this was a trap before we entered the subdivision."
Dent: "Get over it. We just sneak out before they know we're here."
Byte Force: "I hate to be the killjoy, but they may already know you're there. They could just be waiting for you to finish walking into the ambush before pulling the trigger."
 
The sneaky people believed that they could sneak back out again. The people who had bluffed their way in were in a somewhat bigger predicament.
 
No-Step: "I think we're going to have to abandon the van. As long as they know we're in here, they can just blockade the exits to the subdivision and keep us from leaving."
Happy Jack: "Then we just need to convince them that we've already left."
 
The escape plan:
Jane and Dent hid noisemakers in the woods about 30 to 50 meters from the security troops. Some of the radio-controlled, timed noisemakers sounded like assault rifles firing three-round bursts. The others sounded like heavy machine guns firing full auto. In the dark, they even produced realistic muzzle flash.
When the shooting started, Byte Force would disrupt all the security cameras in the neighborhood.
Dent would use Control Thoughts on someone driving a large vehicle. He would command the person to drive like a bat-out-of-hell out of the neighborhood and race toward downtown Seattle.
As the randomly chosen driver raced toward the subdivision exit, Byte Force would open the security gates and jam them open.
In the chaos, the team van's photoelectric paint scheme would be switched from the Seattle Sanitation Department paint scheme to the Aztechnology Security paint scheme. (The extraction target worked for an Aztechnology subsidiary.)
After any mobile security units pursued the decoy driver out of the neighborhood, the disguised van would chase after them, like they were part of the security force.
 
Eye Spy: "My van is built for sneakiness, not speed. It's not going to keep up with a car chase."
Happy Jack: "Yes. We will be unable to catch up with the people who are trying to capture us. I think I can live with that."
 
There was one final critical detail.
 
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, make sure your drones get a full video recording of the trap being sprung."
Eye Spy: "Okay. Why?"
Happy Jack: "I'd like to show Mr. Johnson that the mission was FUBAR before we arrived."
 
Audacity Jane: (listening to the security guards fire thousands of rounds of ammo at the noisemakers) "I like to call this tactic, 'Much Ado About Nothing'..."
 
There were still some surprises provided by the security forces ... and some surprises provided by the team.
 
Eye Spy: "Incoming. A light attack chopper with a chin-mounted autocannon."
Audacity Jane: "Can it be flown blind?"
Eye Spy: "It has some sensors for night flying."
Audacity Jane: "No. No. No. Can it be flown BLIND?"
Eye Spy: "Oh!" (firing a flash grenade from a drone and air-bursting it in front of the helicopter) "Not really. There's no autopilot on that model."
 
During the escape, the team had almost completely forgotten about the target of the extraction.
 
Eye Spy: "They just loaded our extraction target into the back of a patrol car." (pause) "It looks like they're taking her somewhere outside of the neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "How big is her escort?"
Eye Spy: "Just a few guards in the car with her."
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, give me an intercept course. No-Step, do you think you can stop that car?"
No-Step: "My city spirit has a power called 'Accident.' It's pretty good for stopping cars."
Happy Jack: "Good. Our target is no longer sitting in the middle of a trap. Let's go extract her."
 
Minutes later...
 
No-Step: "What's worse than having a city spirit crash your armored patrol car?" (pause) "Having the same city spirit materialize inside the car and kick the drek out of you."
Happy Jack hopped out of the van and jumped onto the roof of the patrol car.
Happy Jack: "Hello chummers. Guess which side of the vehicle you forgot to put firing ports into?"
Happy Jack knelt on the roof of the car, leaned over the edge of the car, shoved the barrel of his mini-grenade launcher into one of the side firing ports, and fired a NeuroStun gas grenade into the car.
Happy Jack: "Firing ports work in both directions."

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."

So I bought Monster Hunter International for my friend Mike. While we were going over it, I noticed that Trolls have Distinctive Features described as "Easily Concealable."
 
Lucius: How?! (pointing to the page with the silhouettes of humanoids from Gnome up to Troll) No, an 8 ft tall Troll can't just go around pretending to just be a basketball player!
 
Mike: Aww, why not?
 
Lucius: Alright then, I'll play a Troll basketball player!
 
And it snowballed from there, so now I'm playing a young Trollop (so as to tone down some of the standard Troll's physical abilities - both because I wanted SOME points left to spend elsewhere, and because things like 4 or 5 levels of Damage Negation are a bit much.)
 
Talking to the other players, I've remarked "He wants to set the game in Washington DC. I guess he figures the city is crawling with monsters." Cue political jokes and remarks about the bloodsuckers at the IRS....
 
So far the characters are
 
Titania "Call Me Fiona" Melungeon, my character, a basketball playing  computer hacking female Troll
 
Kylie "Don't call me Crocodile Dundee!," a young woman from Australia here on the Monster Hunter's Exchange Program, with a boomerang enchanted by an Aboriginal shaman as thanks for saving some of the tribe's children from were-dingoes. 
 
John Lee Pettimore III, the hillbilly army veteran from the song "Copperhead Road" who inherited the family business of moonshining and branched out into more profitable prohibited substances. We took the write up from Surbrook's Stuff and expanded it.
 
 
Part of Titania's background is having been held captive as the "pet" of a pack of vampires, until rescued by a group of Monster Hunters who decided not to kill her too when she showed herself very enthusiastic about helping take down the bloodsuckers.
"Yeah, I loved being a princess rescued from terrible monsters by brave knights. When we were done with the vampires I offered a kiss to every one of those hunters. Even the chick. But being a princess held captive by a monster SUCKS. I don't wanna wait around to be rescued again, I wanna be the knight!"
 
So far, my best quotes are the stuff I put on the character sheet
 
List: "I am A Fantastic Princess Passing for Mundane"
1 1) "People WANT to believe everything they see fits into the world that's real to them.": Disguise 13-, Persistent (+¼) (6 Active Points); Limited Power Self only (-1), Limited Power Not vs Monsters, Hunters, or people who know that Monsters Exist. (-1), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Cannot use full STR; -½), Limited Power Only to pass for Human (-½)
Notes: "Seriously, if the thought crosses someone's mind 'that woman is a monster' then they see me acting all normal, they just dismiss that foolishness from their minds. In other words, people are idiots."
2 2) "Somtetimes it's hard to fit in. I mean, literally.": Contortionist 10-
1 3) "Who me?": Acting 12- (3 Active Points); Limited Power Only to act harmless and inconsequential (-1)
2 4) "Yeah, right. What are ya sayin', I'm from outerspace?": Persuasion 12- (3 Active Points); Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Sarcasm; -½)
Notes: Can convince people what she's saying (or sarcastically implying) is true, but is so abrasive about it that they are alienated and repelled.
2 5) "Trolls have a tough hide that's tough to hide.": Concealment 10-
 
List:"Building bridges, forging iron weapons, using computers - Trolls have always been ahead technologically but never get credit for it."
3 1) "I'm installing Cinematic OS": Computer Programming 12-
3 2) "You wouldn't believe what I can do".: Power: Hacking 12-
3 3) "The walls have ears. My ears.": Bugging 12-
3 4) "Decode this: You have an eye dee ten tee error.": Cryptography 12-
3 5) "Hardware problem. Gimme a minute.": Electronics 12-
1 6) "How'd I get them to tell me? It's called social engineering. Also, people are idiots.": Conversation 12- (3 Active Points); Conditional Power Only online; not face to face (-1 ½)
 
List Athlete[/b]
2 2) "Yeah, yeah, I got a head start, very funny little man.": Climbing 10-
 
 
But I have had one actual in game quote I thought worth sharing.
 
Titania: (OOC) I get on the radio and report in. (BIC)"Calling Big Boomstick, this is Fairy Princess calling Big Boomstick. We have encountered a minimum of five, repeat, five, Giant Australian Hunting spiders. Three down and bagged, two fleeing north, we are in pursuit."
Mike, nonplussed: Your call sign is Fairie Princess??
 
 
Lucius Alexander
 
The palindromedary notes that Titania (or Fiona) is assuming the giant spiders are from Australia because 1) everyone knows Australia is crawling with aggressive venomous creatures, and 2) they showed up right after Kylie did as if they had come in on the same plane. Probably stowing away in the luggage.
edit: I was the only one to miss they Knowledge Skill: Monsters roll, so I made up what Fiona (or Titania) thought she knew about them

Gotta love Shadowrun; those are some great quotes.
 
Tonight was the 2nd episode of my latest Terracide campaign, Salvaging Hope: Part 1 - Omicron Uprising. I'll try to post some more quotes next week, but here's the best one from this session:
 
The crew of the interstellar salvage vessel Coprolite (the PCs) are preparing to infiltrate the Solar Express Corporation fast clipper Sovereign, a massive luxury liner, with the intention of hijacking it. A former Sovereign crew member, Talitha Borealis, is offering to help them, claiming to have knowledge of the ship's layout and security. 
 
First Officer Rene Damphousse: "Are you sure you know your way around the Sovereign?"
 
Talitha Borealis: "If I tell you there's a hot tub full of queso on that ship, pack a bikini and some chips."

Shadowrun 2050 - Characters include

Inkubus: Elven party animal and metal mage
Felix 'Bubbles' Bethke: Formerly an Aztech security mage, put on permanent leave for no reason he can figure out
Samantha 'Greenlight': Teenager whose entire family was kidnapped by Renraku corp.
Titus: Troll - party accountant and juggernaut
Labrat: Ork vehicle and demolitions expert
Warhammer: Dwarven sniper and merc

The Soft-eyed Man: The Renraku operative behind the kidnappings.
Kitty: Greenlight's fixer
Wormwood: Greenlight's mentor when she first found herself alone on Seattle's streets.
Jake: Greenlight's little brother - also one of an unknown number of experimental clones, at least some of whom have biochipped memories.
After wiping out five squads of Renraku Red Samurai and two helicopters, it is becoming evident that the megacorporation doesn't like us. .

Inkubus: I however would like to thank them for their continued contributions to my retirement fund.
Titus: I'm pretty sure they like us, they keep sending us more stuff to sell.

Although it does leave us in possession of more collectibles, although the fact they're still on fire and underneath a burning helicopter is a problem

Felix: Let's congratulate the auction winners on their purchase of increasingly rare intact Red Samurai armour.
Greenlight: Hey, Miss Kitty, I want to organise another auction - more Red Samurai stuff, slightly burned.
Felix: 'Fire Sale'

Titus: How many of the bodies can we throw into the back of the truck?
Inkubus: All of them.
Greenlight: If necessary we will strap them to the roof like deer.

Greenlight's player: *struggles to open jar of salsa*
Titus' player: Troll?
Greenlight's player: Troll. *passes jar*
Titus' player: *opens jar without difficulty*
Greenlight's player: I want to be a man too!

Labrat: I say we escalate
Greenlight: *playing with red samurai corpses like they're ventriloquists dummies* Hooo! You besmirch my honour!
Labrat: We are going to f**k up Renraku
Greenlight: SCANDALOUS!

Titus: You decapitated one with a stun baton!
Greenlight: Red Samurai helmets are awesome! Pity about the neck part.

Labrat suggests a row of Red Samurai heads on pikes in front of their corporate HQ, with broken katanas and a little sign saying "Red Burakumin"

Labrat: Untouchables. Lowest of the Low.

And, of course, inform Renraku's media rivals beforehand so they can film it. With any luck we can make the exec responsible commit Seppuku.

One of the Samurai's commlinks blinks. It's the guy that kidnapped Greenlight's family.

The Soft-eyed Man: Well? Did you get them?
Greenlight:.... Hi.
The Soft-eyed Man: ... you f**kers.
Greenlight: No. *takes off bandana* I'm THAT Fucker.
The Soft-eyed Man: Oh. Well.
Greenlight: I'm coming for you.
The Soft-eyed Man: Actually, I'd like to extend you an invitation. *signs off and texts coordinates*
Labrat: You realise this is a trap, right?
Greenlight: .... Yes it's a trap! I don't need a giant fishman to come up and say 'it's a trap!'

The coordinates are for a decommissioned oil-rig.

Felix: Boat again!
Inkubus: We already win
Felix: Well, we could really surprise them and hijack a sub.

Inkubus: They'll be locked up tighter than a nuns arsehole.
Felix: Speaking from experience, are you?
Inkubus: Well, if you have the right lubricant...
Titus: I did not need to know that.

Our ninja specialist starts prepping for a stealth insertion at night - infra-red goggles, etc.

Greenlight: I almost feel like Sam Fisher now, all I lack is the children and the gravelly voice.
GM: You have the children.
Greenlight: Oh shit I do!

Titus: It'll cost half a million to cover my armour in Diamond-Kote
Greenlight: Pimp my Troll!

Titus: I say we just blow the place up.
Labrat: I can do that.
GM: Goddammit.

Greenlight gets another message - it's 'Hoping for a family reunion' and photo of Greenlight's brother. With him the age he should be. It might be the original. Still, rigging the platform with C12 is a good idea - Labrat knows SCUBA. Of course, there are bound to be complications.

Greenlight: We're not leaving him in the water around a Renraku oil-rig! Can you say 'cybersharks?'
Inkubus: These ones WILL have fricking lasers.

Or paracritters, such as the ridiculous-looking but utterly lethal sea-wolves. On the other hand, with the assistance of Felix's water spirit, Labrat and Titus can park 20 miles away, zoom in and out, and only need the rebreather gear and dry suits just in case. Inkubus' summonings might be impossible, if the necessary conditions - such as fire - aren't available.

Titus: If Warhammer is around, you are always in a place with fire. Or that will be on fire shortly.

Inkubus stirs up the Seattle glitterati to start a flash mob in front of Renraku - with the rest of us utilising our street cred and 100K from the petty cash fund, we can get half of the city to show up. And likely a couple of dragons, who are probably wondering where all the humans are going.

Titus: Dunkelzahn shows up in full 70s disco outfit.

And when the heads on spikes get revealed at midnight, they'll see we used the same font they use for 'Red Samurai'.

GM: Most of the crowd will assume they're art installations, but Renraku will get the message.
Inkubus: Well, they ARE art installations.

And rival corp Fuchi will be there to film the lot - and Inkubus' shiteating grin - and make sure it appears on Japanese TV.

And when the reveal happens, and Renraku security is 'distracted' the rest of us will be paying a little visit to the Renraku airbase just outside town, and stealing all their choppers, flying them over the border, and hiding them.

GM: Are you going to blame this on an ecoterrorism group?
Labrat: It's an option.
GM: Oh shit, you're going to blow up an oil-rig. Of COURSE you are.

Greenlight calls his mentor, Wormwood. Who by a lovely coincidence is a Rigger.

Greenlight: It's time.

Felix takes advantage of the effects on Renraku's stock value, and gives his grandfather at Aztechnology the heads-up too. Even though Lone Star security shows up, they're not going to interfere in a raucous and non-violent street party of 50,000 people - ESPECIALLY since they're in direct competition with the Red Samurai for Asian security contracts.

Labrat: This is turning into a perfect storm of bad publicity for Renraku.

Renraku: Ok, which executive is responsible for this? Which executive just violated first tenet of corporate culture - 'Vendettas are not profitable'?

Plus, of course, we have a combat chopper, transport chopper, and drone-launching chopper, under camo-nets over the border.

Labrat: Are there any spirits guarding the oil platform?
GM: Surprisingly, no.
Felix: Well, you may have killed all their wizards when you wiped out all those Red Samurai at the auction.
Inkubus: Or the Astral Resources department at Renraku isn't talking to that exec anymore.
Titus: They're contemplating jinxing him bald. Or impotent. There's discussions.

Felix's own drone runs surveillance over the oil rig.

Titus: Now I'm picturing us scrawling 'Don't mind me, I'm an albatross' under the wings.

And with an air spirit making our boat invisible, hopefully whoever is on the oil rig won't know how badly they've fucked up until too late. But the Soft-eyed Man is looking surprisingly undiscombobulated when we spot him waiting for us on one of the gantries.

Titus: Maybe he hasn't been watching the news.

Felix does get some criticism for not bringing any weapons more formidable than a light pistol with gel rounds.

Felix: If you REALLY want to kill people I'll just push them off the gantries into the North Pacific, OK?

The Soft-eyed Man speaks to us over the PA - although we have no idea if he can see us, or even if he ACTUALLY knows we're there. Apparently he's arranged dinner in the rig's dining hall. We take our time getting rid of the guards first.

Inkubus: The thing I love about this party is we can legitimately say 'Mess with us and we'll sic Bubbles on you'
Titus: 'He took out a dragon once'
Inkubus: 'And where is he now?' 'Picking out a new dinner set'

Unfortunately, it's not until we've already killed a dozen of them that we notice they're all the same build, and take off their helmets. The Soft-eyed Man wasn't joking about 'family reunion' - we've just murdered a dozen clones of Greenlight's brother. Greenlight manages to maintain her composure, at least externally, but now we have to switch to non-lethal attacks. The Soft-eyed Man is apparently alone in the dining hall - we've already killed all the clone stormtroopers little brothers. Whoops

Greenlight: I have something to thank you for.
The Soft-eyed Man: Oh?
Greenlight: You taught me how to survive.

And during this whole speech Inkubus is invisibly loading a duffle-bag with the booze from the bar.

Greenlight: I'm going to give you 30 seconds to explain yourself before I kill you and throw your body overboard.

The Soft-eyed Man explains the whole deal with the kidnapping, cloning, stem-cell and biochip experimentation, and shifts blame to HIS boss. And THEN Inkubus reveals himself and Mind Probes the man. Apparently Greenlight's brother Jack is on the rig. And is his own security. And is a hulking black void in the Astral. And that the Soft-eyed Man is a biological telepresence - biochipped and remote-controlled.

The Soft-eyed Man: Did you honestly believe I'm HERE?
Greenlight: You're right, that was silly of me - STAB

Jack is a horrific example of somebody cybernetically altered into something more resembling combat drone than human. But he still has a human face in the middle of the machinery. Also, a rotary cannon. Labrat empties a clip into it, which does little more than stagger it.

All: Oh Fuck.
Greenlight: *with Commanding Voice* Jack! Stop!

Despite all the rewiring, the cyberzombie is actually given pause by his own sister telling him to calm his tits.

Jack: .... S-s-s-AM? I Cc--cc-ant STOP. RuN! *opens fire*
Inkubus OoC: Wait, it's attacking Greenlight in Hand-to-Hand? Great! 'Not only can I parry that, I can attack you, AND disarm you.'
Titus: Just don't parry his head off.

And Greenlight indeed manages to take her brother down. And asks for Labrat's knife.

Labrat: I'll do it if you want.
Greenlight: I need to do this myself.

But out of extra spite Jack's remains come with a 60-second countdown. We flee, and Labrat sets off his own bombs first. Which we learn later disables the small nuke Renraku set up.

Labrat: Nuclear bombs are one of the few WMDs that can be disabled by a guy with a small hammer.

Which further means Renraku is going to be in VERY deep shit when the authorities investigate the merely horrendous explosion Labrat prepared in advance.

Greenlight: Gentlemen, let me remind you - Renraku has been having a very bad day.

Felix: And the conspiracy boards are going to go nuts trying to figure out what they did with those three missing choppers.

And, of course, the various dead clones floating around. Inkubus, however, injects himself with a memory-wiping drug.

Inkubus: I don't want to remember cyberzombies. Or what I saw in that mans' brain.

Inkubus collapses.

Greenlight: I didn't expect you for a one-pump kind of guy! Ha-ha! F**k, he's unconscious.

Greenlight goes home and checks on the young Jack clone she's been living with for over a year now.

Greenlight: Hey Jack, sorry to wake you up. Can I get a hug?

Then goes to sit in the shower all night.


 

The Kasserkratch! The notorious grand cruiser and monument to the Ruinous Powers, lost for centuries despite any number of efforts to locate and claim it. We've found it, now all we have to do is seize it. Easy, right? The way our starfort Promise of War can find its own way through the Warp, even without a Navigator, is still a little disturbing.

Cassius: This station worries me.

The system is a nearly bare red dwarf with one barely habitable rock, and a gas giant out in the Kuiper Belt.

Jrska: No innocent populations to pervert - Boooo!

There are, however, an unknown number of smaller ships nosing around waiting for the Kasserkratch to surface from the Warp. So far, they're avoiding us. It's a pity the Promise of War hasn't finished growing all it's new daemonic improvements - those harpoons would have been handy to keep us attached to the barely-ticking over derelict. Cassius casts the auguries, reading the necessary entrails.

Aladar: He has a steady supply of chickens.
Cassius: Chickens?
Jrska: Crew members.
Cassius: Whichever ones are under-performing the most. It's good for crew morale.

Aladar brings our smaller ship, the frigate Chains of Judgement, up alongside the grand cruiser, then surrenders control to the lesser bridge crew.

Cog: And the crew offer a prayer of thanks to whatever gods they believe in, that Aladar is no longer in the pilot's seat.

The Kasserkratch's deliberately confusing internal architecture is not going to be very useful for us at this point.

Joanna: It's designed to ensure boarding parties get lost and separated.
Cog: Oh, great. Guess what we count as.

Despite the ominous rumours, we go aboard already divided into three groups. No doubt we will regret this. Jrska, Joanna, their Kingfisher girls and Sisters of Pain, and Jrska's pet Daemonhost and pet moron Aladar are in one group. Cassius goes in with his Thousand Sons Rubric Marine and a complement of mutants. Cog goes in with the insane dreadnought, which should be enough to deal with anything. And we make sure to take plenty of comm-unit relays, balls of string, luminous paint sticks, and anything else that should help us not get lost, or cut open walls if we do.

Jrska: You know, I'm sure all these precautions have occurred to the other teams that have gone in here over the centuries - and it didn't do THEM any good.

Cassius: The problem isn't the gun, Aladar, it's you. You keep forgetting you have a big *long-range* gun.

Jrska: What orders do we give the crew if we're not back in 10 hours?
Cassius: If we're not back in 10 hours, us being missing is not the biggest problem. And the sealed orders will be 'HahahaHAhaHA - I'm not even sorry'

And things go awry almost immediately - Cassius' boarding compartment opens and he and the mutants get blown out into vacuum. That probably explains one of the more opaque warnings he got in his augury. He's untroubled by the lack of air, but the mutants are lost to the Void for now. And the Kasserkratch isn't visible through the hole.

Cassius: Aladar, I need to have a word with you about your parking skills. Nine kilometres of cruiser does not just disappear!

Jrska: Aladar, sweety, darling, why is the bridge telling me the Kasserkratch is where it always was? Ten thousand kilometres away?
Aladar: What??? You heard the hulls scraping together!
Jrska: I know. I want you to explain this discrepancy. Then explain it to our Lord Cassius.

There's archeotech that can confuse boarding attempts like this, but it's no doubt something even more diabolical. And the Kasserkratch is now showing damage it didn't have before.

Jrska: It was lost in the Warp, my lord - perhaps it is also unbound in time?

Cassius decides to let Aladar do something stupid, as opposed to the usual and Aladar doing something stupid of his own initiative. We fire up the Chain's engines and ram the derelict! The Chains shudders, bucks, and consoles explode all over the bridge as we throw ourselves about dramatically.

Cog: There's nothing explosive in that console! Nothing!
Aladar: And why did that wooden table explode?

Despite the obvious collision, the sensors still insist the Kasserkratch is thousands of kilometres away.

Aladar: I walk out the airlock.
Cassius: No need - this time it's not your fault.

The Kasserkratch isn't visible to our eyes, either - and there is no apparent damage to OUR ship either. Jrska suggests we just ask for permission to come aboard - she is the party diplomancer after all - but Cassius wants to trying getting the Kasserkratch between us and our Starfort and see if we can push all three together. And the damage on the Kasserkratch is now even closer to what the legends describe. Aladar wants someone to monitor the collision from outside. This is a bad idea - not even magboots would save your bones, if you were stupid enough to be standing on the hull - and there's also the problem of shrapnel.

Joanna: I'll happily ram the ships together if Aladar's standing on the prow.

At least the latest attempt exhausts any remaining power on the derelict - although it's suffering rather a lot of repeated ramming damage. Whoops. We've now made it match the legends. Jrska 'helpfully' prepares Joanna for a jump-pack jump across the vacuum - binding her wings down.

GM: You realise that'll hurt right? What with the jet-pack exhausts?
Jrska: Slaneesh cultists.
Cassius: The agony is a bonus.
Joanna: I look forward to the exquisite pain.

We attempt a second boarding. This time the Kasserkratch is actually there.

Cassius: Now we find out if life support is online.
Jrska: It may have been up until a few minutes ago.

We're promptly attacked by swarms of warp-tainted motes.

Jrska: We're being attacked by daemonic dust-bunnies?
Cassius: Nobody say 'Hey! Who turned out the lights? Hey! Who turned out the lights?'

The dreadnought opts not to unleash its flamethrower.

Dreadnought: The Master will be annoyed if I incinerate his minions.

Cassius, unwisely, uses Wind of Chaos, and nearly kills his own minions anyway. Just as well Cassius gave Jrska that Conversion Field ages ago. Jrska takes hold of either end of her daemonwhip and skips rope into the Netherswarm, shredding a large number of the minor entities.

Aladar: Cassius, do I need to worry about backstop?
Cassius: No!
Aladar: *fires Big Bertha*
Jrska: That's LORD Cassius, sweety.
Cassius: No, no, he's fine - I love that gun.

Admittedly, Cassius was in that direction at the time, so perhaps the shine has come off the honeymoon.

Cassius: *starts to chuckle evilly* I have a plan - it might even gain me favour with Tzeentch.
Cog: The 'I have a plan' is the scariest part of that.

Joanna: Permission to use my flamer, Lord!
Cassius: Go ahead - it's lascannons using me as backstop that I have a problem with.

Cog: Logic tells me there is no-one above me.
Cassius: ... eehhh. LOGIC tells you. Logic is just a way to be wrong with certainty.

Cog warms up his new Tzeentch-given lobes and opens a psychic vortex - which sucks Jrska up off the floor and halfway towards the rip in reality. This fails to amuse her. Joanna has it worse as the Netherswarm flows through her armour and tears strips of muscle off her torso - she's incapacitated by the pleasure of it. Aladar gets much the same, and since the silly boy switched his allegiance to Tzeentch he doesn't even get any enjoyment out of it. Jrska is irked by this as well, since her Conversion Field insulated her from this new sensation. And she's sucked even further into the air.

Cog: I can see right up her - oh wait, she doesn't wear underwear.

And then, even worse, Cassius critically botches his psychic perils check, and the Deamon Prince is banished into the Warp. For centuries.

GM: Every time he gets taken out it's by his own means!

Jrska OoC: I'm unlikely to live long enough to see you come back - I am mortal, after all.
Cassius OoC: Unless you become a Daemon Prince.
Jrska OoC: If I become a Daemon Prince who cares what happened to you? At least with you gone it's a good opportunity to seduce the others back to the worship of the One True God and Prince of Pleasure

And thanks to the mind link Cassius was maintaining at the time, the rest of us all get experience the transition up close and personal as Cassius' soul is turned inside out.

Jrska: Oooh, neat!

And because we never did the Ritual of Conjoined Fates, there's NO way the rest of us can bring him back sooner. This is starting to look like a Total Party Kill - no wonder nobody has ever come back from the Kasserkratch before - it's swarming with Vashta Nerada. On the other hand Jrska's double-Dutch skills are pretty lethal.

But we make it back to the Chains, and even we return with flamers to clear out the Netherswarm at this point we're going to have to put the campaign on hold - with Cassius lost in the Warp, his Crusade is going to need a major rethink, even with the rest of us to continue with The Plan. It would appear our GM will be taking a break to actually play, and I'll be running a Black Crusade campaign for a while as we give the existing characters a rest.

Jrska: The Kasserkratch will be reborn in fire. Lord Cassius will return. And he wants you prepare for his return. He's been sending you dreams.
Cog: About ponies. And apocalypse, but mostly ponies.

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name used by/for anonymous employers
 
A Walk in the Park
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Mr. Johnson wanted to hire the team for an "easy" extraction.
 
Mr. Johnson: "The target is a middle manager. She lives in a medium-security corporate subdivision. It should be a walk in the park. Literally. Every evening she takes a walk in the park, and that's where you'll meet her. Just make certain that she doesn't have a tail and bring her out of there."
Jonathan Bridges: "If it was that simple, she would be able to extract herself."
Mr. Johnson: "The target has even provided the extraction plan for you."
Jonathan Bridges: "Yes. I've added a surcharge for that."
Mr. Johnson: (frowning) "A surcharge?"
Jonathan Bridges: "If my team is going to be constrained by an amateurish plan, there is an extra charge."
Mr. Johnson: (raising his eyebrows) "Amateurish?"
Jonathan Bridges: "There's a code phrase. It includes the words 'Easter Bunny.' That's not the work of a seasoned professional."
 
The team came up with a two-part plan. The heavily wooded park was at the edge of the subdivision. Dent and Jane would sneak past security. Jack and No-Step would pose as city sanitation workers cleaning out the sewer along the target's path back to her condo. Dent would approach her invisibly, give the code phrase, and instruct her to walk to the van. When she reached the van, the pair would get her in the van (using a diversion if needed). Then they would calmly drive out of the suburb.
 
Eye Spy: (scouting with her drones) "I think this is a trap. I see a group of people in heavy armor in the park not far from the target. There's another group of people under some trees on the other side of her. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they're wearing heavy armor too."
No-Step: "As much as I appreciate the warning, it might have been nice to know that this was a trap before we entered the subdivision."
Dent: "Get over it. We just sneak out before they know we're here."
Byte Force: "I hate to be the killjoy, but they may already know you're there. They could just be waiting for you to finish walking into the ambush before pulling the trigger."
 
The sneaky people believed that they could sneak back out again. The people who had bluffed their way in were in a somewhat bigger predicament.
 
No-Step: "I think we're going to have to abandon the van. As long as they know we're in here, they can just blockade the exits to the subdivision and keep us from leaving."
Happy Jack: "Then we just need to convince them that we've already left."
 
The escape plan:
Jane and Dent hid noisemakers in the woods about 30 to 50 meters from the security troops. Some of the radio-controlled, timed noisemakers sounded like assault rifles firing three-round bursts. The others sounded like heavy machine guns firing full auto. In the dark, they even produced realistic muzzle flash.
When the shooting started, Byte Force would disrupt all the security cameras in the neighborhood.
Dent would use Control Thoughts on someone driving a large vehicle. He would command the person to drive like a bat-out-of-hell out of the neighborhood and race toward downtown Seattle.
As the randomly chosen driver raced toward the subdivision exit, Byte Force would open the security gates and jam them open.
In the chaos, the team van's photoelectric paint scheme would be switched from the Seattle Sanitation Department paint scheme to the Aztechnology Security paint scheme. (The extraction target worked for an Aztechnology subsidiary.)
After any mobile security units pursued the decoy driver out of the neighborhood, the disguised van would chase after them, like they were part of the security force.
 
Eye Spy: "My van is built for sneakiness, not speed. It's not going to keep up with a car chase."
Happy Jack: "Yes. We will be unable to catch up with the people who are trying to capture us. I think I can live with that."
 
There was one final critical detail.
 
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, make sure your drones get a full video recording of the trap being sprung."
Eye Spy: "Okay. Why?"
Happy Jack: "I'd like to show Mr. Johnson that the mission was FUBAR before we arrived."
 
Audacity Jane: (listening to the security guards fire thousands of rounds of ammo at the noisemakers) "I like to call this tactic, 'Much Ado About Nothing'..."
 
There were still some surprises provided by the security forces ... and some surprises provided by the team.
 
Eye Spy: "Incoming. A light attack chopper with a chin-mounted autocannon."
Audacity Jane: "Can it be flown blind?"
Eye Spy: "It has some sensors for night flying."
Audacity Jane: "No. No. No. Can it be flown BLIND?"
Eye Spy: "Oh!" (firing a flash grenade from a drone and air-bursting it in front of the helicopter) "Not really. There's no autopilot on that model."
 
During the escape, the team had almost completely forgotten about the target of the extraction.
 
Eye Spy: "They just loaded our extraction target into the back of a patrol car." (pause) "It looks like they're taking her somewhere outside of the neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "How big is her escort?"
Eye Spy: "Just a few guards in the car with her."
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, give me an intercept course. No-Step, do you think you can stop that car?"
No-Step: "My city spirit has a power called 'Accident.' It's pretty good for stopping cars."
Happy Jack: "Good. Our target is no longer sitting in the middle of a trap. Let's go extract her."
 
Minutes later...
 
No-Step: "What's worse than having a city spirit crash your armored patrol car?" (pause) "Having the same city spirit materialize inside the car and kick the drek out of you."
Happy Jack hopped out of the van and jumped onto the roof of the patrol car.
Happy Jack: "Hello chummers. Guess which side of the vehicle you forgot to put firing ports into?"
Happy Jack knelt on the roof of the car, leaned over the edge of the car, shoved the barrel of his mini-grenade launcher into one of the side firing ports, and fired a NeuroStun gas grenade into the car.
Happy Jack: "Firing ports work in both directions."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name used by/for anonymous employers
 
A Walk in the Park
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Mr. Johnson wanted to hire the team for an "easy" extraction.
 
Mr. Johnson: "The target is a middle manager. She lives in a medium-security corporate subdivision. It should be a walk in the park. Literally. Every evening she takes a walk in the park, and that's where you'll meet her. Just make certain that she doesn't have a tail and bring her out of there."
Jonathan Bridges: "If it was that simple, she would be able to extract herself."
Mr. Johnson: "The target has even provided the extraction plan for you."
Jonathan Bridges: "Yes. I've added a surcharge for that."
Mr. Johnson: (frowning) "A surcharge?"
Jonathan Bridges: "If my team is going to be constrained by an amateurish plan, there is an extra charge."
Mr. Johnson: (raising his eyebrows) "Amateurish?"
Jonathan Bridges: "There's a code phrase. It includes the words 'Easter Bunny.' That's not the work of a seasoned professional."
 
The team came up with a two-part plan. The heavily wooded park was at the edge of the subdivision. Dent and Jane would sneak past security. Jack and No-Step would pose as city sanitation workers cleaning out the sewer along the target's path back to her condo. Dent would approach her invisibly, give the code phrase, and instruct her to walk to the van. When she reached the van, the pair would get her in the van (using a diversion if needed). Then they would calmly drive out of the suburb.
 
Eye Spy: (scouting with her drones) "I think this is a trap. I see a group of people in heavy armor in the park not far from the target. There's another group of people under some trees on the other side of her. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they're wearing heavy armor too."
No-Step: "As much as I appreciate the warning, it might have been nice to know that this was a trap before we entered the subdivision."
Dent: "Get over it. We just sneak out before they know we're here."
Byte Force: "I hate to be the killjoy, but they may already know you're there. They could just be waiting for you to finish walking into the ambush before pulling the trigger."
 
The sneaky people believed that they could sneak back out again. The people who had bluffed their way in were in a somewhat bigger predicament.
 
No-Step: "I think we're going to have to abandon the van. As long as they know we're in here, they can just blockade the exits to the subdivision and keep us from leaving."
Happy Jack: "Then we just need to convince them that we've already left."
 
The escape plan:
Jane and Dent hid noisemakers in the woods about 30 to 50 meters from the security troops. Some of the radio-controlled, timed noisemakers sounded like assault rifles firing three-round bursts. The others sounded like heavy machine guns firing full auto. In the dark, they even produced realistic muzzle flash.
When the shooting started, Byte Force would disrupt all the security cameras in the neighborhood.
Dent would use Control Thoughts on someone driving a large vehicle. He would command the person to drive like a bat-out-of-hell out of the neighborhood and race toward downtown Seattle.
As the randomly chosen driver raced toward the subdivision exit, Byte Force would open the security gates and jam them open.
In the chaos, the team van's photoelectric paint scheme would be switched from the Seattle Sanitation Department paint scheme to the Aztechnology Security paint scheme. (The extraction target worked for an Aztechnology subsidiary.)
After any mobile security units pursued the decoy driver out of the neighborhood, the disguised van would chase after them, like they were part of the security force.
 
Eye Spy: "My van is built for sneakiness, not speed. It's not going to keep up with a car chase."
Happy Jack: "Yes. We will be unable to catch up with the people who are trying to capture us. I think I can live with that."
 
There was one final critical detail.
 
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, make sure your drones get a full video recording of the trap being sprung."
Eye Spy: "Okay. Why?"
Happy Jack: "I'd like to show Mr. Johnson that the mission was FUBAR before we arrived."
 
Audacity Jane: (listening to the security guards fire thousands of rounds of ammo at the noisemakers) "I like to call this tactic, 'Much Ado About Nothing'..."
 
There were still some surprises provided by the security forces ... and some surprises provided by the team.
 
Eye Spy: "Incoming. A light attack chopper with a chin-mounted autocannon."
Audacity Jane: "Can it be flown blind?"
Eye Spy: "It has some sensors for night flying."
Audacity Jane: "No. No. No. Can it be flown BLIND?"
Eye Spy: "Oh!" (firing a flash grenade from a drone and air-bursting it in front of the helicopter) "Not really. There's no autopilot on that model."
 
During the escape, the team had almost completely forgotten about the target of the extraction.
 
Eye Spy: "They just loaded our extraction target into the back of a patrol car." (pause) "It looks like they're taking her somewhere outside of the neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "How big is her escort?"
Eye Spy: "Just a few guards in the car with her."
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, give me an intercept course. No-Step, do you think you can stop that car?"
No-Step: "My city spirit has a power called 'Accident.' It's pretty good for stopping cars."
Happy Jack: "Good. Our target is no longer sitting in the middle of a trap. Let's go extract her."
 
Minutes later...
 
No-Step: "What's worse than having a city spirit crash your armored patrol car?" (pause) "Having the same city spirit materialize inside the car and kick the drek out of you."
Happy Jack hopped out of the van and jumped onto the roof of the patrol car.
Happy Jack: "Hello chummers. Guess which side of the vehicle you forgot to put firing ports into?"
Happy Jack knelt on the roof of the car, leaned over the edge of the car, shoved the barrel of his mini-grenade launcher into one of the side firing ports, and fired a NeuroStun gas grenade into the car.
Happy Jack: "Firing ports work in both directions."

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 / Jonathan Bridges: troll, combat, disguise, negotiator
Mr. Johnson (NPC): the name used by/for anonymous employers
 
A Walk in the Park
This was the same adventure previously described by Drhoz (here).
 
Mr. Johnson wanted to hire the team for an "easy" extraction.
 
Mr. Johnson: "The target is a middle manager. She lives in a medium-security corporate subdivision. It should be a walk in the park. Literally. Every evening she takes a walk in the park, and that's where you'll meet her. Just make certain that she doesn't have a tail and bring her out of there."
Jonathan Bridges: "If it was that simple, she would be able to extract herself."
Mr. Johnson: "The target has even provided the extraction plan for you."
Jonathan Bridges: "Yes. I've added a surcharge for that."
Mr. Johnson: (frowning) "A surcharge?"
Jonathan Bridges: "If my team is going to be constrained by an amateurish plan, there is an extra charge."
Mr. Johnson: (raising his eyebrows) "Amateurish?"
Jonathan Bridges: "There's a code phrase. It includes the words 'Easter Bunny.' That's not the work of a seasoned professional."
 
The team came up with a two-part plan. The heavily wooded park was at the edge of the subdivision. Dent and Jane would sneak past security. Jack and No-Step would pose as city sanitation workers cleaning out the sewer along the target's path back to her condo. Dent would approach her invisibly, give the code phrase, and instruct her to walk to the van. When she reached the van, the pair would get her in the van (using a diversion if needed). Then they would calmly drive out of the suburb.
 
Eye Spy: (scouting with her drones) "I think this is a trap. I see a group of people in heavy armor in the park not far from the target. There's another group of people under some trees on the other side of her. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they're wearing heavy armor too."
No-Step: "As much as I appreciate the warning, it might have been nice to know that this was a trap before we entered the subdivision."
Dent: "Get over it. We just sneak out before they know we're here."
Byte Force: "I hate to be the killjoy, but they may already know you're there. They could just be waiting for you to finish walking into the ambush before pulling the trigger."
 
The sneaky people believed that they could sneak back out again. The people who had bluffed their way in were in a somewhat bigger predicament.
 
No-Step: "I think we're going to have to abandon the van. As long as they know we're in here, they can just blockade the exits to the subdivision and keep us from leaving."
Happy Jack: "Then we just need to convince them that we've already left."
 
The escape plan:
Jane and Dent hid noisemakers in the woods about 30 to 50 meters from the security troops. Some of the radio-controlled, timed noisemakers sounded like assault rifles firing three-round bursts. The others sounded like heavy machine guns firing full auto. In the dark, they even produced realistic muzzle flash.
When the shooting started, Byte Force would disrupt all the security cameras in the neighborhood.
Dent would use Control Thoughts on someone driving a large vehicle. He would command the person to drive like a bat-out-of-hell out of the neighborhood and race toward downtown Seattle.
As the randomly chosen driver raced toward the subdivision exit, Byte Force would open the security gates and jam them open.
In the chaos, the team van's photoelectric paint scheme would be switched from the Seattle Sanitation Department paint scheme to the Aztechnology Security paint scheme. (The extraction target worked for an Aztechnology subsidiary.)
After any mobile security units pursued the decoy driver out of the neighborhood, the disguised van would chase after them, like they were part of the security force.
 
Eye Spy: "My van is built for sneakiness, not speed. It's not going to keep up with a car chase."
Happy Jack: "Yes. We will be unable to catch up with the people who are trying to capture us. I think I can live with that."
 
There was one final critical detail.
 
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, make sure your drones get a full video recording of the trap being sprung."
Eye Spy: "Okay. Why?"
Happy Jack: "I'd like to show Mr. Johnson that the mission was FUBAR before we arrived."
 
Audacity Jane: (listening to the security guards fire thousands of rounds of ammo at the noisemakers) "I like to call this tactic, 'Much Ado About Nothing'..."
 
There were still some surprises provided by the security forces ... and some surprises provided by the team.
 
Eye Spy: "Incoming. A light attack chopper with a chin-mounted autocannon."
Audacity Jane: "Can it be flown blind?"
Eye Spy: "It has some sensors for night flying."
Audacity Jane: "No. No. No. Can it be flown BLIND?"
Eye Spy: "Oh!" (firing a flash grenade from a drone and air-bursting it in front of the helicopter) "Not really. There's no autopilot on that model."
 
During the escape, the team had almost completely forgotten about the target of the extraction.
 
Eye Spy: "They just loaded our extraction target into the back of a patrol car." (pause) "It looks like they're taking her somewhere outside of the neighborhood."
Happy Jack: "How big is her escort?"
Eye Spy: "Just a few guards in the car with her."
Happy Jack: "Eye Spy, give me an intercept course. No-Step, do you think you can stop that car?"
No-Step: "My city spirit has a power called 'Accident.' It's pretty good for stopping cars."
Happy Jack: "Good. Our target is no longer sitting in the middle of a trap. Let's go extract her."
 
Minutes later...
 
No-Step: "What's worse than having a city spirit crash your armored patrol car?" (pause) "Having the same city spirit materialize inside the car and kick the drek out of you."
Happy Jack hopped out of the van and jumped onto the roof of the patrol car.
Happy Jack: "Hello chummers. Guess which side of the vehicle you forgot to put firing ports into?"
Happy Jack knelt on the roof of the car, leaned over the edge of the car, shoved the barrel of his mini-grenade launcher into one of the side firing ports, and fired a NeuroStun gas grenade into the car.
Happy Jack: "Firing ports work in both directions."

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."

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."

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.

Well, after being woken up at 7PM and dragged to an impromptu Shadowrun session last night on account of me forgetting to tell half the party there wasn't going to be a game that evening due to the Xmas break..
 
Greenlight, Warhammer and Titus are the only players. My Plan was to lead into Greenlight's plot Climax by having these three captured, so I decided to throw some Overwhelming odds against them.
 
This ended up becoming "Reasonably Challenging". For only half the party.
---
 
 
 
It's finally time for the Red Samurai Armor auction. held in an abandoned warehouse in the Barrens (as is standard for these sorts of things), a small group of unscrupulous looking men in suits arrive to bid. A few more are here via telepresence. 
 
Greenlight: Oh, Cool! One of them is using the SEELE Avatar!
 
The Bidding begins, and a bidding war quickly erupts for the most pristine set of armor between the Monolith, and a rather Large Japanese Troll (even for Trolls) who grunts a lot, called Yama. The Troll finally clinches the deal with an offer of 300k for that armor alone. The other 5 less impressive sets are quickly sold to others (including the monolith) for 140% base price.
 
The transactions complete, everyone bar Greenlight, titus and Warhammer move the armors into the Mystery Machine to ship them off to parts unknown. 
 
Aaand then Suddenly the Roof Implodes.
 
As is customary for Shadowrun, this entire next sequence occurs within 2 Combat turns, AKA Six Seconds:
 
 
Rappelling down from a personnel chopper are Four squads of Red Samurai at 5 men each, Each squad having an additional LT, and another bigger guy leading the op, bringing the total number to 25 Men. Renraku know that the team is exceptionally Experienced, and thus decide to use Shock and Awe tactics to get the drop on them in the surprise round.
 
The shadowrunners, Naturally, went first.
 
Greenlight, using her ridiculous amount of Edge, manages to shoot out one of the ropes as one of the quads rappels down, causing an entire squad to fall on their butts.
 
Warhammer, thinking that that was a brilliant idea, follows suit. By firing a Woolly Pete Grenade into the personnel chopper's crew compartment. The pilot was thankfully (for him) smart enough to have his cabin door closed, so he wasn't immediately killed. the WP nade however managed to snap the rest of the ropes, causing every single squad to collapse into piles. 
 
Titus decided to not use his hammer for the first time, and tossed a frag grenade into one of the piles. They went away.
 
Things went downhill for the Red Samurai. Going through natural target selection, they went for the dwarf with the grenade launcher (Warhammer). It annoyed him. Then they went for the troll (Titus). The gel rounds pinged off his armor like raindrops. Then they went for the weedy guy in the coat (Greenlight) with proper aimed pinpoint focused fire. They missed. So then they charged the troll with swords. The troll laughed them off. The guy in the coat yelled for them to 'throw their guns away' (Adept Power: Commanding voice), forunately, they ignored it, only being confused. One of the lieutenants, obviously targeting the mage, charged him. Greenlight then proceeded to use the Large Dice Pool Rules on a Full Parry action, and thus  decapitated him with a stun baton.   An attack chopper flew in when the transport helo bugged out, and targeted Titus. After missing with a wide burst, it tried again with focused fire, and for the first time in campaign history, Titus actually took damage that wasn't from Friendly fire. for 2 Stun Damage.
 
At this point, the Red Samurai Troops decided that bringing gel rounds to capture the targets was a bad idea. The leader called in for reinforcements.
 
Red Samurai Leader: Bring in more men! Some Flamethrowers, A Fucking Tank! Anything, Jesus Christ!
 
Warhammer Decided to end this little charade, and fired another WP grenade into the attack chopper. And landed a Critical.
 
The WP grenade landed directly into the rear Rotor, Sending molten metal and phosphorous spinning wildly everywhere, melting the rear of the chopper off, and sending the remaining half careening into the warehouse, where it promptly crashed and exploded, killing the remaining Red Samurai troops instantly.
 
Inkubus: *Craning his head out of the Mystery Machine's driver's seat window* "What the hell was that noise?"

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."

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."