Emo Samurai's Dedicated Campaign Thread, The Next Generation Options

[Kremlin KOA]

Dranem, do you ever go back and read the things you write?

DO you read the background nfo for shadowrun

Dunkelahn and Harlequin in conversation refer to the matrix as an artificial Metaplane

In Earthdawn Artificer and a couple other named horrors can hide in MACHINES

so there is no reason a Horror can't be in the matrix

In Virtual Realities 2.0 a pair of Immortals discuss the nature of the Resonance, heavily implying in the discussion that it is either a Mad Passion, or a Horror

Both of those are Magical entities

Tech and magic fusing has been one of the darker themes of Shadowrun

Nuclear Weapon Foci (Sorry Emo, those have all been used already, and the designers were the suicide bombers)

Cybermancy

Alchemy

Technoshamans, whose Aura reads as 'Like Magic, but not'

The Deep resonance is most likely a Mad Passion, the nextmost lilely option is a Horror

so potency is not far off the mark

[Dranem]

Do I ever go back and read things I write? Far as I can tell, I haven't contradicted any of my previous posts....

[emo samurai]

I am NOT connecting magic to the Matrix! I'm just recreating the symptoms goddammit!

[Kremlin KOA]

I was the one connecting them

FanPRo aren't exacty removing the references, that was a Mike Mulvihill thing

Rob appears to feel like puttingin just enough to whet the appetite of those who like it
without upsetting the rest

(Shedim is mybest example of that)

[emo samurai]

Do you think I should grant potency, or should I give her a wolf free sprite? I think the wolf free sprite will be nice, but it will make anything but a resonance quest meaningless in terms of difficulty. Same with potency, but it's creepier. Then again, it would involve taking way too much control of her character, and she'd lose this power after her character-specific quests.

[Kremlin KOA]

neither and both

a free sprite mentor would let her learn deeper mysteries and make a convenient excuse for Cash/karma exchanges (trade new hardware to live in for help in matrix learning)

but a free sprite puppy is a bit much

[emo samurai]

I was thinking of having it pop in from time to time to show her how to become more powerful in the ways of the Matrix, helping her to Submerge with less karma use. It would be a free sprite mentor that works for Eidos, and when it comes down to face Eidos, it'll take the side of FanGirl and get absorbed and de-rezzed. The nascient AI that's left over and infected with the part of the sprite mentor will be her new mentor sprite, more powerful than before.

[emo samurai]

Had my second run today; it was really, really easy for my players. I had the ant fleshforms build a mana lodge with freaky-ass goo from their mouths in the basement; the thing is, though, I didn't let them build it beyond force 4 before Vranton was able to astrally project though the barrier (it rolled 1 success against Vranton's 5) and totally ruin the shit of the collected insect spirits. One of the mages went astral in order to fight Vranton, but his meat body was smashed by the party's physad, who went in through the vents. Even though the mana barrier was over the vents, he, of course, was an adept and this didn't matter. The troll tried to channel a beetle spirit and rolled one success against five; he then screwed over his drain roll and keeled over and almost died. The gnome shaman went down as mentioned before, and the queen that got summoned got her shit ruined by Vranton's summoned Chaos spirit, which looks really cool.

It's a writhing red mist with faces and limbs constantly reaching out of their depths only to be dragged back down by whatever's inside the mist. In the middle of it is an eye with crooked red streaks constantly forming and disappearing on it; it looks at you no matter where you stand or how many people look at it, and its gaze is constantly darting over the myriad parts of your body. It casts Fear on whoever looks at it as a free action, and its elemental attack is unblockable by armor. Fortunately, I'll cut its Immunity to Normal Weapons in half so that it doesn't destroy everything in its sight.

C made Moloko Plus, who was a physad trained by Wuxing corporate security and left the company during the Crash. The man training them was claimed to be a monk, but he was very materialistic. One of the main reasons Moloko Plus left was because the man had nothing in the way of wisdom to give outside of breathing exercises and stretches. Because of this, the only powers he really knows are Critical Strikex6, Killing Hands, Armorx4, and Improved Reflexes 1. No combat sense, improved ability, etc. That's one of the main reasons he left. While in Wuxing, he loved to sneak around and into places. His brother, who was on the fast-track to executive status, always covered for him.

I'll have a huge backstory to the status of martial arts at Wuxing. About five sessions in, I'll have them meet with a Johnson. He'll turn out to be Moloko's brother, who recognizes him immediately and tells them all about the suicide run he would have sent them on if his brother wasn't there. The brother will then explain that he couldn't send his brother or his friends on a mission like that, and he can't continue as a Johnson (or a fixer, for that matter; I'll explain later) with a reputation for sending runners to their deaths. Therefore, the only choice he really sees as viable at this point is leaving Wuxing with the help of Moloko and his friends. He could leave right now, but the thing is, he doesn't have much money; all of his payment was in Wuxing corp scrip. Fortunately, he also worked as three different fixers for Wuxing over the years under three different names and disguises, so he was able to launder the good :nuyen: they gave him to support his shadow work and corp scrip into chunks of orihalcum. They'll be paid with 20% of the valuables they extract; he'll explain that he just needs whatever's valuable and give them the plans to his nice apartment. The stuff will be all the incentive the players need. This will include said chunks of orihalcum and multiple pieces of fine artwork bought with his corp scrip, some of which generate background counts.

The party will then have a 6/6 fixer after this run, along with maybe 30 units of orihalcum and a lot of fine art.

One of the most important treasures in his collection will be a robe that used to belong to a stereotypical Shaolin-esque monastery. It generates an incredibly high background count. It was stolen by corporate mages and drones and Wuxing threatened to rip it if they didn't train one of their physads, just one. If Moloko returns it, he'll have their eternal gratitude, the benefits of the background count, and a great magical group to reduce initiation costs.

The thing is, though, the master of the monastery isn't a monk per se; he's a scary-ass dude who's always shrouded in shadow. Any features you see through it are never the same in any two encounters. He doesn't care about the robe; the other monks do because they admire him, so they give it the background count. When Moloko gives it to him, he'll shred it to pieces, anchoring the background count to himself and increasing it at the same time. He'll preach that all things are illusions, time, space, pain, etc. He'll basically prove it too, with his canon-breaking powers and stuff. The master will rock.

As for FanGirl's conflict with Eidos, she'll have a first encounter with Eidos Prime in which she gets her shit ruined. She'll get saved by the wolf pup which changes into a freaky ass 500 lb. wolf whenever she's threatened. This will help break her connection to the Matrix. She'll have to wear a tin foil hat to avoid connecting to the Matrix.

She'll eventually meet up with the remnants of Winternight and the Dissonance, recovering the code for Jormungand and releasing it on Eidos proper. She'll be backed up by most of the fragment AI's that gathered information and fed it into Eidos.

[Glyph]

[emo samurai]

Edited.

Is that all you have to say? I'm... troubled. You've broken the status quo on the deepest level.

You know that character with 1 point of Knowledge: Bear Studies? While he was in a bar and talking about how he was raised by desert bears, I had a troll bear shaman walk in with a bear skin on his back, the top half of a bear skull for a hat, and a paw for the back of each hand walk in, look at him, and walk away.

Also, should I buy On The Run? I read that it's very helpful for understanding the game world; is it?

[emo samurai]

I've thought of involving Ysrthgrathe when, and if, I run Harlequin's Back. He'll have a starting conversation that I will write up and hand to the players. And if time permits and everyone tells me their stories, I'll have him tell a second fairy tale about the fall of Sereatha that resembles the raids of the Adversary from Fables. I'll have a single warrior walk out from the ranks of the elven knights, proud in his gleaming armor and finely honed pike. He'll slay the hordes of the Adversary 10 at a time until they form a bubble over him, which rises, then, collapses. I'll have Harlequin say "It wasn't enough; it was never enough."

[James McMurray]

I thought you were adamantly opposed to having Horrors in SR?

[emo samurai]

Oh yeah... but Harlequin's Back isn't really Shadowrun, is it?

[Kremlin KOA]

reason to buy threats
first you want it for Tutor: he will help ya mold the evil free sprite that is goin for fangirl
second you want it for Darke, from harlequin's back
more background on him

[emo samurai]

Tutor?

[Kremlin KOA]

you will love tutor
he is so YOU

[emo samurai]

Insane? Evil? I'm not evil!!! Or does he just fit my GM style?

[Kremlin KOA]

it is.... difficult to explain
Tutor is perfectly sane, and only wants to prrotect his people

[HMHVV Hunter]

Yeah, Tutor is kind of hard to place as a bad guy/good guy.

If a character is an arrogant prick, sending his spirits/elementals in as cannon fodder, he'd be a prime target for Tutor. If he's just arrogant with his magical abilities, Tutor could teach him a lesson that he's not all powerful, but I don't think a lesson like that needs to be fatal necessarily.

[James McMurray]

If Harlequin's back isn't Shadowrun, how did we play it using our Shadowrun characters and Shadowrun rules? It isn't a typical run, but it's a canon adventure in the Shadowrun world.

[emo samurai]

I know, I know... I just wanted to talk my way out of my "spoiler."

What IS Tutor, anyway? Is he a really, really powerful free spirit? What force, and what powers?

[stevebugge]

[emo samurai]

What are these motivations and MO?

[Kremlin KOA]

Fuck over anyone who treats spirits badly

He has a power that makes spells easier to cast for you... the more you use it, the more of your damage boxesbecome his to play with

when he so chooses he can fill in thoseboxes and make you unable to heal that damage (it fills from the dead end of the line first and fills up both stun and phys)

thus making you weak sick and lethargic

[emo samurai]

What if you do things like banish spirits that attack you?