Background:

Agriculture relies on inputs. Aside from sunlight, these are various chemicals. Some are derived from the air (notably CO2 for plants, O2 for animals) but pretty much everything else comes through some combination of soil and water. An example would be the various compounds of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus which usually cycle through the environment at a rate determiend by the biophysical activity of the creatures in the area, ranging from birds in the air to the soil biota.

If you want to extract more, you need to bring more nutrients. The old fashioned way is manure and guano. The way of the Green Revolution is petrochemically sourced.

By the middle of the twenty-first century, petrochemicals are rising in price and displaying their limitations. They can't substitute for micronutrients, and their regular use and abuse isn't good for soil biota. Pretty soon you end up with soil which isn't a living system, but a growth medium like gravel in a hydroponic setup. In the NAN some of this pain was reduced by pushing more traditional agriculture and just accepting more limited yields. In some corners of the world, they will push for as much artificial plant food as they can find.

Kelly Ortiz is an environmental manager (read: contract farm manager) for Jackrabbit Gulch Ventures. She doesn't have jackrabbits to worry about, but she does have production figures to keep up otherwise she might very well find herself redeployed to solid biowaste management in a parent megacorp's janitorial division.

Benny Stumptown is a junior environmental manager for Jackrabbit Gulch Ventures, who was passed over for promotion in favour of Kelly. The way he sees it, it would have been him except that Kelly put on her chapstick and kneepads and sucked the district manager's brains out through his groin. He knows perfectly well Kelly needs to make her numbers or get pushed out, and he figures that she could never make her numbers if just one little shipment of NPK nutrients didn't make it in on time.

In actual fact, Kelly didn't need to suck much of anything. She's just good at her job. But the district manager is sweet on her and certainly would like to spend extra time investigating the biological environment which they experience together.

The Parties:

Kelly Ortiz

A competent, businesslike lady who is the modern version of a farmer - an expert for hire in the service of a large company.

Jackrabbit Gulch Ventures

A joint venture with majority stockholding by a heavy machinery subsidiary of Shiawase. Farming in the CAS is pretty much their gig.

Benny Stumptown

Another farmer - in his junior position his salary is an insult, his authority is negligible and his frustration is high. Oh well, sucks to be him. And he knows it, so he just wants to get ahead. Can you blame him?

Konrad Taron

Konrad is Kelly's direct manager, and is at a level where he doesn't do things - he tells other people to do things and then checks that they did these things. Kelly was his pick, because she makes green things grow - and because he wishes that on some corporate retreat he could test the limits of her fertility. Because it's all about goals.

Caribbean Potash

They don't just deliver potassium based nutrients, but also a fair range of nutrients right down to kelp-based micronutrient-rich plant food. Which won't do a lot of good when shipments don't arrive.

RapeWhistle

Yup, they're back. And they (and their friends in All Sentients Rights Organisation) can think of nothing more fun on a lazy day than helping Benny stop some Gaia-poison. That would be the truck full of nutrients. And hey, some of those nutrients can be combined with diesel to make explosives so that they can cause more mayhem!

The Problem:

Hey, what's not to like about violent extremists with explosives ingredients? And farms producing less food? And honest people being sidelined by crooks?

Well, Kelly's not too happy. So she gets with a fixer to get her supply lines sorted.

The Proposition:

"My client is missing a shipment. The shipper claims they were robbed, which may even be true, but it doesn't solve the problems. We need you to find the shipment, intact if at all possible, and bring it to my client ASAP. Payment will be pro-rated on the return of the materials, plus a ten thousand nuyen base payment for any word on the vehicle, driver or other relevant information."

The Facts:

RapeWhistle jacked the truck, and offered the driver a simple choice: work like a dog in their encampment to expiate his guilt for Gaia, or take a bullet to the cerebellum and pay his dues by decomposition. He chose option A. If the runners can identify him and speak with him, he will do anything and everything he thinks he can as long as he gets out of there. He thinks the members of RapeWhistle are absolutely apeshit crazy, and they horrify and terrify him in equal measures. He will not fight them. But he will run like a rabbit in any direction the runners point.

If the runners go through the data of RapeWhistle, they will find lots of information implicating Benny. Enough to earn him six feet of retirement farm all his very own.

Some Complications:

RapeWhistle are getting more extreme, more violent, and have started building booby traps with explosives. This should be a dangerous run for the naive.

About fifty percent of a twenty ton (metric) shipment has been converted to explosives already. This makes for quite a few very big bangs.

Konrad will be dismayed by all of this, and will pay handsomely to keep it quiet, because this sort of thing does not look good on his employment record. That includes turning runners into mulch, if necessary. They should think (and tread) carefully around the corporate politics.

Aftermath Ideas:

RapeWhistle feed more information on the runners to their buddies in ASRO. An entire subculture of rabid treehuggers wants the runners dead, or inconvenienced, and will do so out of sheer spite.

Caribbean Potash are impressed by competent work, and grateful that they don't have to up their insurance premiums if the driver was rescued. They might have more work for the runners.

Feedback

I incorporated/borrowed one of your scenarios into an ongoing scene recently, and am duly acknowledging and providing feedback. If I ever invent a time machine, about the 377th * thing I’ll do is track you down when this thread is just starting, and suggest giving names to the various ideas, which would make them easier to reference later. But apparently I don’t invent a time machine because that didn’t happen, so, descriptively it was the one set in the bayou, where Mama has magical roots going back to who knows when, the would be suitor of her ward escapes the bayou to join the bayou babies only to (maybe) go all Sampson during a run. Clear as the water in the bayou? Good, carrying on….

I embedded/intertwined this with an ongoing investigation.

(detail: I have a one player game, the PC is a shaman. While investigating a missing teen back in Seattle he’d infiltrated a cult/policlub promote the superiority of the awakened. He determined that the Zachary (the missing teen) had been shipped to the groups headquarters, near New Orleans, for “advanced training,” and he went that route himself. While down there a side job got him sent to Mama for help in tracking a missing package (the drone that was hiding it in the bayou got eaten by a large awakened gator, and those who were supposed to receive the package feared retribution from ‘the powers in the bayou’ if the package broke open in the bayou). For her help, Mama asked the runner and companion to investigate what happened to Jean, the missing suitor (I forgot what name he had in the original write-up, so I just made him a generic Jean). )

I changed a few items. I left the relationship between Mama and her ward unclear (grand daughter? Apprentice?). I gave them a sort of house boat, more or less a shack on pontoons. Which upon asensing turned out to be awakened, with power higher than the PC shaman’s magic. (the exact nature was never revealed). I felt that un untrained Jean was unlikely to be able to join the bayou babies and shortly bring a factory down on his head, so I created another escapee from the bayou with more skills as a red herring (actually a woman disguising herself as a man), but had her trail criss-cross both Jean’s trail and clues that I needed revealed for the other investigation. The rest was more or less per the write up, allowing for the fact that I didn’t have it open in front of me while running things.

Things that worked for us:

- The PC was impressed with Mama’s power, skill, wisdom, and experience. It was funny seeing the brash city boy suddenly being all “yes ma’am”
- The bible-thumping hamlet that Jean was from put the fear of being burned-at-the-stake into the PC, which was also good. He used magic to get the information he needed, but boy was he careful with the where, how, and around who.

Things that didn’t:
- The investigation part fell flat, which I’ll take the blame for. The PC had already been doing investigations, and now had more investigations to do. He wasn’t willing to be too rough about it, so it was a lot of rolls of perception, asensing, etiquette, negotiate, and judge motives—all of which he has at similar levels, so there wasn’t much motive for him to use one over another. So there was a lot of “roll eight dice, then roll them again, then roll them again.” I should have set some triggered scenes where people would behave irrationally when questions were asked, leading to some good action.

And in case you were wondering:
- the behind-the-scenes story is that the cult/policlub views spirits inhabiting human bodies as the ultimate hybrid and wave of the future—that all humans, awakened or not, are essentially breeding stock for these new, better, beings.
- the group had purchased a de-commissioned oil rig off the coast where they go through final preparations and summoning, and where the less human looking of the results could live safely. Mostly they have ‘student’ volunteers there who are convinced they are becoming something better—the case with Zachary-- but they also have some less willing prisoners (basically anyone who finds out but doesn’t want to participate, so who could leak the information)—which was the case with Jean (he’d stowed away on their supply boat, being curious about the entire group of awakened people he’d seen go onto it, then got caught).
- the leadership of the group is not all unified, with splits between those still human and the embodied spirits, and between some of the different embodied spirits of different types. The details of this were never found out, but were seen in the actions, which is what gave the PC and his ally (a troll who is good at hitting things with clubs) a chance.
- One of the prisoners was a young fisherman who’d investigated the rig too closely, and those wondering about him helped with the logistics of the approach, and Mama contributed a fairly huge spirit to track Jean and guide the PC to him
- Had some interesting tactical situations. Embodied spirits have certain weaknesses in terms of astral combat, and for all that their bodies are pumped up in terms of physical stats it turns out that nausea gas can still be an effective weapon against them. And they aren’t entirely immune to be smashed by trolls. But they are tough with some interesting combinations of abilities.
- Both boys got rescued (getting the second was a tough call), and the PC and troll companion survived—fleeing into the busy streets of downtown NO to escape one final, monstrously embodied, water spirit who only caught them at the docks. Out of edge, damage tracks half full…. The action part came out just about right.
- And there is an embodied spirit of man sharpshooter who has promised that they’ll never know what hit them if word of what is on the rig gets out (Given five rescued prisoners plus Zachary, they are very worried about leaks).

* I know that seems like a pretty low priority, but I figure hey, if I have a time machine I should be able to get around to everything eventually.

Background:

The countryside is wide, empty, and tranquil. It's a great place to lie back, relax, look for shapes in the clouds and wait for the heat to die down. Of course, after a few dozen times, even the great thinkers in Lone Star got the idea, and the game was on.

The Parties:

Lone Star

They can't be everywhere, so once in a while they subcontract some of the stickier situations. Especially when someone with a lot of money demands results, and jurisdictional issues prevent them from operating openly.

Knight Errant

Knight Errant aren't bad guys. And they certainly want miscreants caught and brought to justice - as long as they get their cut. And if Lone Star isn't cutting them in, then obviously Lone Star are the problem.

Lew MacKenzie

All he wants is for the fighting to stop. He wants peace. Specifically, he wants the long arm of the law to stop trying to fight him. So what if he had sex with the daughter of a CEO? She loved it. And she consented. And she wanted to keep seeing him. So what if he's twenty-five, and an ork, and she's a hot human of seventeen, who is heir to many meganuyen? So what if she gave him one of her daddy's favourite hunting rifles as a gift? That's between Lew and her. Or her and her daddy. Lew didn't break any laws that really mattered.

Amanda Busch

Hot, horny, seventeen, and with a taste for the butch. Lew dresses up nice, and could pass for human in the street, but turns into a complete wild animal in the sack. She thinks she can make her own decisions. And it all really pissed off her daddy, who doesn't pay her nearly enough attention anyway.

Kendrick Busch

A pissed off father with heavy connections.

The Problem:

It's an old, old story. And a surprisingly simple one. Romeo and Juliet wasn't that different. Except without the guns. Lew has gone to ground in an ancient trailer up a creek where the fishing's good, the hunting's not bad, and nobody ever goes. Lone Star has a pretty good idea where he is, although they can't confirm the details. All they need is deniable assets to make the grab.

The Proposition:

WANTED

DEAD OR ALIVE

LEW MACKENZIE

FOR RAPE AND THEFT

$NY 100,000 (Alive) or $25,000 (Dead with confirmation)

The Facts:

Lew was smart enough to skip jursidictions because he wants to live. He has kin in the area who will let him know the very moment they see heavily armed strangers. In CAS he knows his skin is worth more than he can pay. Now he's in UCAS. But while he wants to live, he knows that what waits for him in the CAS isn't worth living for, so he will adamantly refuse to be taken alive.

Some Complications:

It's a political case. Humanis wants him so very dead. They want him dangling from a rope on a branch, because that's how they work. Anyone surprised? Didn't think so. Of course on the other hand, the trog rights groups are all over this. They want to make him a poster boy for the hideous judgemental racism of the CAS, and Humanis, and anyone else whose flags they don't like, like Lone Star. There's a posse of journalists all over this area, looking for their Big Scoop, and many of them come with armies of news drones. Keeping a low profile will be very hard.

Aftermath Ideas:

In such a simple story with so many angry faces, there's one major unexpected aftermath aspect which should bite most players: whichever side they choose, whatever they do, they will have their reputation, politically speaking, marked by their choices forever.

sorry this dropped in the wrong thread

Great to see the Redneck Run back in town for more out of ass end of nowhere runs.

Background: We gotta help a "friend" get a friend out of a rehab camp in the ass end of nowhere.

The Parties: Joe Appleseed is an awakened who is one bad event away from a psychological breakdown, he found trust in the first one to show him pity like a damn lost puppy. He has done better over the years working as a talismonger after being tossed out of the home but he is seemingly too attached to Jane...sort of like puck and Jackpoint.

Jane Peeves is your typical free thinking, drug toking hippie teenage girl who have a trust fund. However her parents is the kind of parents that would do anything up to dealing with a dragon to reprogram the child, so far nothing in the city have really worked and they are turning to outsider help for a change.

The honest Believer's Healing camp is a rehabilitation camp that you would hear sometimes about while browsing the trix, favored by Horizon parents who would prefer to brainwash their kids rather than threaten to unleash a corpsec corporal punishment squad, they would legally kidnap children and youth and take them to these camps to become "well adjusted" believing dro...er citizens of Corporate society with a mix of squatter living and tough love sessions. All the price of 5000 Nuyen. Post rehab chems costs extra.

The Peeves family is an old money family with staunch values of god, tough love and more religious reinforcement. Funding these wonderful rehab camps they were shocked to learn their daughter has become a free thinker despite all the indoctrination they taught her.

The Problem: Joe and Jane are very close, but Peeves hates awakened more than metahumans because they are the scourge of god. Some say he seduced her with magic but this kind of behavior is natural for Peeves, plus she loves psychologically troubled young guys who needs help. But apparently the Peeves had enough of their daughter's free thinking ways and in the break of night she was kidnapped CIA style. Appleseed soon learned of this quickly through his extended family who had noticed a couple of palefaced guys taking her to a rehab camp in another tribe's land who isn't exactly friends with Appleseed's people.

The proposition: Joe wants a simple rescue job, he is paying you in foci, drugs and nuyen to save his girl from certain indoctrination/death.


The Facts He had heard horror stories about these camps and wants you to get her out. Of course given the fact he is living on an emotional crutch and as a potent awakened does not help the Runners any better because if she ends up dead or emotionally broken he will freak out and unleash an awakened rage that may level the nearby city block the runners are at right now. Plus his tribe as distant as he may be will call for your deaths.

Finding the camp was easy, getting into the place is hard, wilderness rehab camps are places of horror. Far from civilization as the patients are forced on heat scorching death marches who's personnel are more concerned about their well being than the patients. Living conditions are horrifying and there may be a couple of reports of deaths that get covered up...

They also got rigger patrols out in the desert and the only thing that makes it easier is there are no barbed wire to keep out unwanted guests, not that it matters because the guards there are trained to make sure the young awakened and trolls don't get any ideas of breaking out so they are packing heavy.

Time is ticking and the longer she is cooped up in the camp the faster she is gonna break...

Complications

Rival tribals have struck an alliance with these guys, so NAN tribals will attack you and you don't who's whom.

So the rehab camp may have a toxic totem, or a bug shaman and runners realize a simple rescue job has gone very bad.

The nearby town may in league with the rehab camp, since they get rid of their troubled youth so effectively. Do you keep driving even though Jane's practically been starved to death, under a heat stroke and supplies are running low between runners (Did you remember to bring several water canteens to the wild, of course not, you are city slickers). And the next stop is about a good 8 hour drive.

Aftermath

Getting her back to town will be easy, keeping her safe from her family is hard.

Joe may be targeted next of course, if some member of the Peeves found out he had hired a fixer to get his girl back they will definitely inflict reprisal on him.

A couple of acolytes find out about the runners and decide they will send a couple of their "holy" men to deal with them.

Background:

Remember this run?



The one with the Vultures out of Denver, and the survivalist cult? The cult is still active, and they've decided that they need to find the bigger time, get more followers, and arrive at a higher plane of spiritual existence and remunerative function. Some people are starting to take notice, and do not like what they are seeing.

The parties:


Guru Swami Rajakrishnan has reached deep within himself for answers and found them. He laid out his vision before his inner circle, and they, too, found it to be full of wisdom. Within their syncretic approach to various (but notably indian) polytheistic religions, Harold Gutenmeyer figured out that there was a great metaphor for him ruling over a whole series of franchise cults.

The tender shoots of his wisdom have not entered cities, and have no intention of doing so. They're all too aware of the fate of the Universal Brotherhood, so they prefer quiet isolated vales and land where there aren't too many naysayers or watchful eyes.

The Concerned Families Collective (CFC) is pretty much what it sounds like. Their kids, parents, spouses and cousins have been separated from them, told them to go to hell and generally caused no end of heartache and concern. When it was a few barrens brats, nobody cared, but now people with actual money and connections are starting to wander off, and families with money and connections have started to find each other.

The problem:

It's not really a new problem. The Universal Brotherhood caused similar concerns, and even before the great Awakening there were cults like the Moonies. Some relatively benign; others less so. What all these cult leaders forget is that these families can be real pains in the ass. And some of them can afford bigger pains in the ass, which is where the runners come in.

The proposition:

"We have here a list of people. We have identification, biometrics as of last known body condition, DNA for many of them, information on registered cybernetic enhancements and a lot of personal background. These are just our family members, numbering over a hundred. We don't know, in many cases, if they are still alive, or where they are. We want them out, we want them back, and we want their brains detoxified from whatever garbage was forced in there. Do you understand that? We want our families back. But just in case you don't feel our pain, we think that a hundred and fifty thousand nuyen per retrieved, competent person might help your empathic capabilities."

The facts:

You don't make an omelette without breaking some eggs, and you don't get to build a serious organisation of fanatics without breaking a few personal ties. However, the job of returning these people to some form of competence might feel a little like turning fish soup back into an aquarium. How does Guru Swami Rajakrishnan do it? It turns out that he has gone over, and brought his organisation over to a particularly insidious form of toxic magic.

In the language of the cult, there are the Potters, the Vessels, and the Bearers. Potters are a nasty form of magical tradition which looks rather like a toxic shaman of mankind, but in short their totem is that of Insanity. Not just any kind of random insanity either, but obsession and devotion and self-sacrifice and idealism. Perfect cult fuel, in other words. The Vessels are people who have been melded with such spirits (willingly or not) and who are now perfect labour, cannon fodder and muscle for the Potters. The problem for the Vessels is that they are not quite functional human beings any more, and need a certain degree of watching to make sure that they don't do things to extremes, or misinterpret, or whatever. This is where the Bearers come in. The Bearers are not magically active (if any are found to be talented, they get turned into Potters on the quiet, or disappeared more permanently), but they are cult members. They are taught to revered the devotion of the Vessels, and told that the Vessels are in a state of permanent spiritual detachment (only kinda true) and that they are training to become Potters (totally false).

Obviously, Vessels are dual-natured, and extremely obvious to the magically sensitive. For this reason, Vessels stay in cult grounds, and one of the duties of Bearers is actually to stand armed guard.

Beyond the mechanics of the cult, all the cult's locations are in contact with each other, and while they are separated by hundreds of miles, they will send strike teams at full speed to respond to any attacks on any location - response time of an hour or so, but when they arrive all hell will break loose all over again.

Potters can not be deprogrammed in any meaningful sense - if you allow it in your campaign, there may be some way of detoxifying their totemic attachment, but they will absolutely fight that ferociously every step of the way with all means at their disposal. A bullet to the cerebellum is so very much cheaper and faster.

Vessels could in principle be cleansed of the possession - although it should take an initiate to even think of doing so. And they will fight with all their dual-natured fury to prevent this. A bullet to the substantia nigra is vastly cheaper and wonderfully faster. The good news is that they are easier to restrain if you really want to take the time and trouble.

Bearers are the easiest to remove and deprogram. This doesn't mean that it's easy.

The biggest flaw in this system is that the Vessels are not very discriminating - people in cultish clothing will get unquestioningly accepted. Bearers might be similarly fooled. Potters and their attendant spirits are very hard to fool.

The cult avoids all electronics. On the plus side, it means that runners on an attack can use their tac nets and whatever else with near-impunity. On the minus side, there is no Matrix reception inside the buildings (they're shielded) and even out of doors, without satellite, not much is getting through. The cult's records are hand written, by Vessels, and hand checked, by Bearers. Searching their files is a pain in the butt for the technologically dependent.

On the other hand, the cult is very magically sophisticated, and will use everything from watcher spirits on to Greater Spirits of Insanity.

Some complications:

This looks like a very simple situation, but believe it or not there are a few possible wrinkles.

The cult is putting out drugs which are popular for parties, or are popular with wageslaves who need a pick-me-up, or something to take the pain out of a long day. And all of them make future Bearers and Vessels that much easier to recruit.

The cult is putting out music, or sponsoring matrix shows with particular scripts.

The cult only establishes a branch in an area after quietly subverting the local authorities, which means that they have inside information on the movement of people in the area, and an inside call on backup.

Aftermath ideas:

So you rescued the people. Great! You deprogrammed them. Awesome! ... are you sure that you really deprogrammed them? Are you sure that none of the worshippers of Insanity managed to slip out?

Oh, you're sure. Marvellous. Perfect.

It's time to collect. The CFC might be very grateful, or they might have trouble deciding to part with that much money. And it is a lot of money. And the insurance companies backing the run want to individually assess every single cultist to figure out how not to pay.

One to the fallout fans

Background: Mining, drugs, and cows. It's gold rush in the sixth world of California.

The Parties: Mr. Madrezo is the drug baron of New Redding, he keeps the meth labs in New Redding running which means a robust drug trade. This is something they need though since the quotas for mining are very demanding. He is willing to be a third party in the whole affair but the law is just looking for an excuse to get rid of him and replace with another patsy in the drug empire. Maybe a high school terminally ill school teacher?

Dan LaBarge is a Dwarf NAN owner of a local mine in the town, a staunch supporter for the miners, he had been looking to secure a sweet deal with the mayor of the town by securing a monopoly of the mines which means no corp would dare muscle on his turf unless they want to start a war that no one is going to win or have a mine that is in working order. He is looking to take control of the situation through less legal means.

Hanz Ainhoff is an elven Saeder Krupp doc who has patched up everything from ware to addictions in the town and is working on behalf of SK mining interests in the area. He is fed up with the addictions ruining the efficiency of the mines and would prefer if it was under more capable hands. He is willing to sell German Ware to anyone who would put an end to the addiction problem and bring the mines under SK control.

Ben Horner is a Troll rancher with an affinity for cows and nature, owning a bunch of ranches in new redding, he thinks all of this mining crap is bullshit and decides it would be much better if the economy was livestock instead. With the price of fresh food going up, he is going to make a killing and he is willing to let the mines collapse for all he cares.

The Problem: So recently there are outlaws causing trouble, yeah there is always outlaws. But they just got holed up at the most valuable vein of orihalcum that people is dying to get their hands on. No one is willing to move in and what would you know, another bunch of outlaws in town.

The preposition: The various parties have been tasking you fucking over the other parties. Let's see their sales pitch

LaBarge wants you to go in, get the miners out and disarm the bombs and take out the sons of bitches holed up in his mine. He also wants you to make sure there isn't any evidence implicating him with criminal elements either. So you may have to do some heavy lifting. He is willing to part with several bars of gold for a job well done plus whatever drugs you secured for him.

Hanz is looking to implicate everyone by finding out that LaBarge is drugging up his miners and take the deed as proof while getting rid of the outlaws in an "accident". since he is SK, he can pay you directly in SK Scrip which means easy liquid assets when you come to Germany, plus cyberware as an additional award.

Horner wants the mines blown up and end the raping of Gaia's magical veins. As an incentive, he is offering runners an entire herd's worth of cow meat and leather on top of "wrangling" fees. Simple but deadly.

The facts: Nothing complicated really, a classic case of deciding what's best for a small mining town.

Ok, fine it isn't so simple, the outlaws involved is a bunch of thugs "released" by Lone Star to make all sides pay up for protection. The outlaws are nocturnal fighters and what would you know, mining tunnels barely have any light and tall ass trolls are just asking to get geeked in the tunnels from a barrage of shotgun slugs. They know how to fight in close quarters and the number of weapons you can use without causing the mine to eurupt into flames is very limited. The mines also have poor reception so rigger drones will not go far without becoming useless hunks of metal.

And there are explosives everywhere...great.

Complication

Paracritters in the tunnels who have sampled Madrezo's animal friendly meth.

A smuggling tunnel that may have stash of weapons, armor and other questionable goods that you don't know belongs to whom...

Madrezo may have a drug lab down here, lots of fumes, chems and nasty corrosive chems that eat through armor jackets and very flammable.

Lone star deciding enough is enough and gets in personally, and they don't care who they shoot.

Aftermath

Ore runs out, what is New Redding gonna do?

Pissing off/Working for SK? Well nice knowing you.

Lone Star has noticed you and has put up some nice wanted posters with some trumped up charges.

The runners are not in good shape. Their last few hours in Boston involved more time in Boston harbor than is healthy (even wearing dry suits); dealing with the thing that resulted when CFD led an EVO scientist to attempt to make the most perfect human evolution, and then a band of mad technomancers with a security helicopter. And the usual homicidal headcases, of course. That was before a dragon air lifted them out at altitudes that humans only really cope with when wrapped in extreme cold weather gear and while using proper breathers--hey had some scavenged Boston winter wear and their diving breathers, which ran out of air far too quickly as the valve is meant to vent when the pressure inside is higher than the pressure outside, which is all the time at altitude. Plus the whole being dangled from talons for far too long.

Finally they are dumped into a field, the dragon makes sure that they are actually still alive, then assures them that it is pretty sure that it has avoided detection, but just to be safe they should avoid using any of their electronics, and should probably make themselves non-obvious for a bit. They’ll still be trying to stand when it takes off again (the dragon is heavily wrapped in cloaking spells the entire time). On one hand they are wounded, exhausted, short on weapons and low on ammo. On the other, they are finally out of the urban hell of locked down Boston, in the tranquil country side, and able to finally breath a sigh of relief.

Cue a redneck run.

What I’m trying to decide is which one to use as my base. I’m thinking the simple ‘two feuding clans’ could get moved to the Adirondacks or the former coal country of Pennsylvania or something in that area. But I’m not wedded to that one yet.

But I really want to make this one make them all wish they were back in Boston, whatever run I use.

I'm posting, looking for anyone who has ideas on how to up the fear and loathing factor on the feuding clans, or thoughts on other runs that would suit this well. I just want to avoid “People possessed” and stick with how messed up (meta) humans can make things all on their own.

Sorry I've been quiet for so long. Real Life has been fairly busy.

I only had about three hours of sleep last night, so the following may not be entirely coherent, but here's a thought for you:

They are first met by Petra Vincent, a kind-looking lady who evinces plain concern, and promises to heal them up, all on the quiet, no questions asked. She admits to being an empty-nester, missing her kids and so on. All very lovely, entirely heartfelt stuff. She has a nice farmhouse where she tends their wounds, offers them the use of her workshop to repair their things, oh and by the way, while they're here, suggest to them, if they were in a giving mood, that they could repay her kindness (and lots of home-cooked meals) by sticking around (very quietly, of course) long enough to do some welding and so on to fix some of her farming machinery. It would be really great. Thanks a bunch, guys, you're swell!

The real deal: her kids left her not because they wanted the bright lights, but because she's a crazy, controlling, manipulative harpy who doesn't wield guilt like a cudgel, but like a freshly-honed microtome.

She has also successfully antagonised the entire local community, because of ancient disputes about mineral and water rights. She absolutely never ever will back down from any position, however irrational, where she feels she's in the right. This doesn't mean that she can't be forced to accept the occasional tactical reverse, but that she will keep trying and trying and trying, and throwing things in people's faces. Like Mark Thomas.

Mark Thomas was an old squeeze of Petra's, when she was young and curvaceous and desirable. He discovered that she wasn't just hot - but also subtly crazy, and he dumped her. This was about forty years ago now, and she has neither forgiven nor forgotten. She first tried to get him back, but when he discovered the charms of young ladies who were sane as well as attractive, that didn't work. Then she showed up uninvited at his wedding, and tried to interfere on the grounds that she was pregnant (not true). Then she tried her damnedest to marry the richest local man she could, to outdo him. This plan took a few years to bring to fruition, but she managed to sway a well-off young man who didn't listen to good advice. In subsequent years she tried to out-farm Mark Thomas, out-breed his wife, take him on in every possible legal sense and ultimately bankrupt him.

All her plans failed, but Mark Thomas is now a sworn enemy. The characters should realise eventually that Petra is crazy, and be offered a chance to escape to the help of Mark Thomas ....

only to discover that Mark Thomas is every bit as crazy, with a different flavour. He's a local tycoon in his way, since constant competition from Petra has made him much stronger and smarter than he would otherwise have needed to be. He's now an iron-fisted patriarch who, by dint of being more charismatic than Petra, and more judicious, actually has the solid support of his large, extended family. His problem, although he'd never reveal this, is that he is really concerned about being bought out, manipulated out or otherwise pushed out by large corps, and he secretly suspects the characters of being some kind of vanguard of this plan. He got them out of Petra's hands because he knows that she would cheerfully throw him to corporate wolves if she ever got the chance - but he's hoping that he can take the characters out of the picture first. He just first wants to (subtlely) milk them for all the information on Petra and their (supposed) employers that he can before he does away with them.

Fortunately, they will get rescued! Debra Whittington is a sympathetic ear who can get them out before Mark Thomas actually kills them, and ... she's crazy. She's an infiltration activist for All Sentients Liberation Front, and she and her cel of freedom fighters are actively plotting an armed (localised) insurrection with the intention of liberating all the oppressed nonhuman creatures (cattle, chickens, turkeys and so on) from their wicked exploiters. However, she and her (armed and cybered and dangerous) fellows, are extremely volatile, and will alternate between hugging the characters and shoving gun barrels up their nostrils at the slightest provocation.

As luck would have it, they can get away just in time (i.e. before Debra has them shot for crimes against critters) by the merciful agents of the local sheriff, who for once is totally, utterly sane. And cold-heartedly calculates the value of voters (like Petra and Mark) against troublemakers like Debra ... and the characters. He will put them in the slammer and then extort everything he can from them under threat of simply handing them off to the authorities. After all, he knows shadowrunners when he sees them. Of course ... the could do him a favour ...


With every change of hands they should have less stuff, more problems, more enemies, and more mistrust of their fellow metahumans.

Hope this helps!

If you want to keep them from just wandering off, the general atmosphere of paranoia can be upped by having distant sniper shots ricocheting off trees, and a general sense of hostility and fear. So they steal a tractor? Yeah, a heavy calibre rifle bullet will wreck the engine. They're not getting out easy or cheap, and if they're stranded by the roadside under sniper fire, the next rescue will be really easy to pull off.

God to see you about again Koekepan (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Always enjoy listening to your pieces.

Listening?

Has someone been cyberstalking me all the way to my bandcamp?

Thanks for the response Koekepan – sorry to be slow acknowledging it, I just hate typing on my phone and haven’t had much quiet time at a proper keyboard the last several days.

Other RL plans fell through, leading to our next SR session being sooner than expected. I was half prepared, half winging it, which ended up being a mistake, although no great harm done.

I went with a bit of a variant on what you sketched out, hybridizing it with the original feud scenario. The runners were dumped off in a water meadow, interrupting the post-dawn chores rendezvous of Sue-Ellen Smith and Luke Brown (I always forget more complicated family names, so kept those simple). After the runners improvised a story that was perhaps unlikely but at least hard to verify, they ended up going with Sue-Ellen, since she and her Mama were alone in a big old farm house and had lots of space, and Mama would be so happy to have visitors (i.e. would be distracted enough to not ride Sue-Ellen so hard -- not that the stunning country beauty didn’t have her own interest in these outsiders).

There was early hospitality, and chance to take a nap, food (not particularly good food, but food), and a promise that if they could help with some chores the next day, the day after Mama would drive them into town. The next day the shaman was able to spy on Sue-Ellen and Luke meeting up, and saw blatantly the young woman was manipulating the lust-struck young man. And like good guests they helped out as best they could, still assuming that the ride would be forthcoming the next day.

They wake up just after dawn to a rifle shot, and find Mama triumphant to have shot one of the Brown’s goats that kept invading her small orchard. (Runners didn’t know she’d caught it earlier that season and had been raising it, hoping to find a way to get a male to breed it and start her own herd). Mama took off in the truck to crow to the Brown’s that she’d finally had proof their goats were what was attacking her trees, and that she’d shot one (actually a ruse to help waste the day away, to avoid taking the runners into town).

On her way back one of the Brown boys accidentally-on-purpose shot out her tire, and Mama went into the ditch. And here is where in partially winging it I made a mistake. Without thinking it through I said “Once you get Mama back home she uses the phone—yes, like in the old 2-D trids! – to call into town to get Mike Murray to bring her a new tire.”

I had planned a whole dispute over cost of said tire, more delays ruling out the drive into town that day, next day Sue-Ellen and Luke causing issues, and on it could go. But players, being players and having begun to catch on, told Mike Murray “500 nuyen for the tire and trip out here? Done. How about another 2000 for a ride into town—a couple of us are willing to cling to equipment in the back of the truck, believe me, we’ll take our chances.” (they had a spirit use ‘Guard’ to make sure no mishaps happened to those on the back). If I'd had time to plan in more detail I would hopefully have realized this out, and planned things differently.

And so they avoided much of the family, feud, and fear that I had planned. And I had to completely wing the return to Seattle, but that was OK because after Boston and this little interlude everyone was just happy to be with their stuff and go do normal activities with people they knew and more or less trusted. (“Stretch is still living at my apartment, right? And he’s made sure my bike is OK? All right, we get on our bikes, ride out to The Cinders, and race until the light fails. Then I pick up a couple of cases of beer and tell him the story back at my place.”)

Maybe (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)