Recruiting: Kingmaker Options

[JackRipper]

Looking for 4 to 6 well thought out shadowrunners.

I am only interested in concepts/backgrounds at this time (Please do not PM me concepts/backgrounds a spoiler in the thread is prefered)

Game setting: SR4

Theme: Beginning to intermediate runs (NO PRIME RUNNERS), based on the lower-
end (read this as street level, for now)





I am looking for a balanced group (missing a key type of player, the group will miss things or only marginally succeed) [and yes that means Hackers are a viable option for PC]

Misc. rules: In header during game play you must post PAN mode
Ex. PAN: Passive (model) (any peripherials ie..linked contacts)

I plan on exploiting...i mean using the PAN as it an important development in the game.

[Shadow]

Besides street level are you looking for a certain feel?

[JackRipper]

in particular, no.

PC's dont have to be street types, but at least close enough to it that it works for them. If concept is new to the scene and earning your chops that's cool or if PC is by concept just a smidge higher than the streets she works on that's ok too.

[Shadow]

Ok here you go,



Name: Sahara Ann Clark
Age: 29
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Criminal Record: Yes (If so please explain)
6 Months Hollywood Correctional Facility, drug possesion
Background: Ex-Cop
Bitter (Yes/No): Yes

[ Spoiler ]

Her mother was an Indian immigrant and her father was a German immigrant. It inspired an interesting gene sequence in the girl. Growing up she had dark skin with curly blond hair that she kept long. Her father worked for the small SK field office in Seattle so she spent most of her time in the Emerald City. She new from day one that she wanted to be a cop. Nothing pleased the girl more than solving mysteries and figuring out secrets.

In high school she was pretty much shunned because of her associations with the Youth Star. LoneStars youth program which helped shepherd kids into being officers of the law. After High school she went to Seattle U. Unfortunately her father did not make a lot of money as a janitor so she had to work and go to school at the same time.

She did well in the standard classes but where she really shined was the Criminal classes. She absorbed knowledge about crime and law.

After her bachelors she got put on the list for LS beat cop. Being in phenomenal shape and having an exceeding desire to succeed she made the program. At 24 years old she was a rookie cop on the force. It was everything she wanted it to be. After two mandatory years as a uni she tried out for Detective.

She made it one try and became a Detective. Two years later she made the sergeants exam and was promoted form Vice, to Robbery Homicide. Her first partner didn’t work out to well. He was on the take from a local scumbag and ended up getting himself geeked on the job. The taint of his betrayal stained her and her LT had a hard time finding her a partner.

Then along came Dan. Detective Daniel T. Armstrong was a very large Ork. 6’5” and 300 pounds of muscle. But being an ork and a cop was pretty difficult for the detective. Racism abounds, even in the star.

Destiny it seems had an idea. These two outcast Detectives made a great team. They enjoyed each others company on and off the job. In three years they solved a record number of crimes and put away some of the biggest murders in recent years.

After a particularly big victory the two partners celebrated at Sara’s house by drinking wine and watching movies, something they both enjoyed. After a little to much drink they made passionate love.

Awkward would be putting it mildly. Sara wasn’t sure how to deal with her new found feelings for her partner. It certainly made it hard on the job. She considered putting in for transfer, but before she could fate would conspire against her.

The next day on the job the duo were investigating a break-in/murder at a small electronics firm. The physical evidence they gathered seemed to point to an inside job. Back at the Precinct Sahara and Dan got paid a visit by a high level Novatech Agent and her boss. They were told in no uncertain terms to drop it. That didn’t sit well with Sahara so in her off time she continued to investigate it. A few days past and she was getting some good leads. That’s when the world fell in. She hadn’t told her partner what was going on because she didn’t know how to talk to him about the night, let alone anything else. A week after she was told to drop it Sahara went to sleep. When she woke up she was in the back of a meat wagon, her clothes were torn, she was half naked and high as a kite.

The disciplinary commission found her guilty of using an illegal substance and demanded her shield. She spent 6 months in the Hollywood Correctional Facility as an ex-cop. At 26 her once promising career was ruined. She had lost everything, including her house, her partner, her life.

That was yesterday.

[JackRipper]

I like it, but by my math she's 29

[JackRipper]

also, what archetype would she be close to?

[Shadow]

Detective/Bounty Hunter

[Cedric Rolfsson]

JackRipper
I've got a concept for your review.

[ Spoiler ]

Cynic: Ork Bounty Hunter/Pit Fighter -Adept

Is working the shadowy side of bounty's doing skip-tracing and collecting on find-and-recover bounties that aren't exactly above the board always. Primarily muscle work he spends most of his time working the Underground or the metahuman areas of the Barrens. Young but seasoned he quit the Pit Fighting circuit when he realized there was no future or security. He has a younger sister, 16, whom he is responsible for as he's raised for the last five years since their father died. She is a norm, he goblinized when he was 12. He's been working his way into more serious shadow running over the last six to eight months, looking for bigger nuyen to so he can get his sister out of the life they are currently living.

This is actually a character I generated for a tabletop game so he's fully formed.

[JackRipper]

So, he's an Phy-adept (muscle that does bounty work)?

Is he more muscle or bounty hunter? This for me is crucial to make the distinction between being muscle that does bounty work, or a bounty hunter who uses muscle (believe me its a different feel and skill set)

[Blitz]

Hey there...I created a utility mage for Mushashi's game but he isn't responding anymore to my IMs and Im starting to doubt if she'll see any play there. I have the sheet completed already but in excel so really hard to cut and paste here. If she's going to be the only mage though, I can adjust her spells to cover a broader range of tasks. All my info stuffs on my home computer so I can post it soon as I get off work.

[JackRipper]

a concept/background is good for now

[Cedric Rolfsson]

He primarily muscle that does bounty hunter work.

[ Spoiler ]

His skill set and contact database are focused towards combat.

If he hunts anyone down its cause his fixer tells him;

"X is a Lake Acid banger who lives Y. He's a kamikaze addicted Troll who lifts weights while chewing steriod tabs, and he skipped his last payment to Vinnie. Bring him to me and I'll pay you W."

Then my guy goes out, kicks down doors and bashes in heads, and brings back the "bounty".

He also does intimidations for hire and bodyguard work but I don't know how to write that up. Primarily a muscle guy who is trying to move up the food chain from backstreet legbreaker to shadowrunner. Not stupid just has a very limited experience set.

[Whizbang]

Hmm...seeing if I can't convert my Missions char to SR4....

Name: Whizbang
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Race: Elf
Archetype: Street Mage

[ Spoiler ]

Whizbang doesn't like to look back on what she refers to as The Change. That was the day 10 years ago when she went from living in a nice house with her parents, where there were lots of toys and her kitty. In the course of a day, she was living in a little apartment in Seattle with her mother. Her dad was supposed to be coming to take them somewhere better. He never showed up.

A couple months later, Whizbang's mother was killed when she was robbed of what little the pair had left. Left alone in the streets of Seattle, she would have become yet another statistic. However, Squawkbox was there to save her. The parrot shaman hadn't been expecting to be taking in a child, but when she practically tripped over a magically gifted potental, Parrot wasn't going to let it drop. So Whizbang got to go home with her new big sister.

As Whizbang got a bit more advanced in her powers, she began to take a part in the activities of Squawkbox's gang. Shadowhawk, the leader, hadn't been overly enthused about having a kid around, but when she helped patch up the gang after a tussle with a rival gang, he decided that mabey she wasn't that bad.

Flashing to the present, Whizbang isn't even recognizable for the pampered child of her not so humble beginings. The rainbow haired teenager knows as much about the streets as one who has been born there. She's recently started taking jobs outside of gang activities, but a call, she'll drop anything for her family.

[JackRipper]

Is Whizbang part of the gang?

If she is, is the gang a Wizgang?

[Whizbang]

Yes, she's part of the gang. No, it's not an all mage gang. She and Squawkbox and perhaps one or two others are pretty much the magic support.

[JackRipper]

So far we have:

A Snoop
A Physical Muscle
A Mage

If i'm wrong on role please let me know.

[Ophis]

I may have something, where's the game being set?

[adamu]

Hello JackRipper. My name is Adam. I have what I think is a cool idea for your game, but I will not only need your approval to enter the game, but also Shadow's, since the character was inspired by and is a parallel/spin-off to his character's storyline.

In terms of archetype, I am afraid it adds nothing new to your existing candidates - but I reckon the one type most groups have at least two of is "fighter."

As briefly as I can put it, Cyrus "Asp" Burger is a martial-arts accountant ex-cop fugitive desperately in hopeless love with Sahara.

[ Spoiler ]

A human, Cyrus was born to upper middle class professional parents. His father was a philosophy professor, his mother a patent lawyer. They were extremely loving parents, doting on their only child, though not to the point of spoiling him.

Aside from family stability and comfortable socio-economic circumstances, the two greatest molding factors in Cyrus' formative years were his love of martial arts and his ineptitude with the opposite sex.

Unlike his parents, proud intellectuals, Cyrus loved physical activity from early childhood. Although intelligent, he was always more interested in playing out of doors than doing anything bookish - a tendency his parents fought all their lives. All through his childhood, he begged to join soccer and Little League teams, but his parents always forbade such activities as low-brow and a waste of time that could be spent on more cerebral pursuits. Finally, at age 9, Cyrus realized that he could easily pitch his father - whose specialization was Eastern spirituality's influences on modern Western philosophical movements - that martial arts were more about the mind and soul than the body. He introduced his father to research he'd done on local (and suitably expensive) dojos that emphasized that aspect of martial arts, and his father approved. Thus, he started in T'ai Chi, which he attended every evening, to which he quickly added aikido in the afternoons (easy sell - the Chinese versus Japanese traditions made a very complementary pair). By 15 he had made excellent progress physically, and as an unintended side effect, the spiritual aspect had also rubbed off on him. His aikido (love/feeling/way) instructor, in particular, formed a special bond with him, impressing him deeply with the importance of enryo (restraint) and kenson (modesty/humility). Cyrus struggled to live according to these ideals, which meant never discussing with his peers or anyone else his now formidable abilities, always avoiding fighting at all costs, etc.

Still, he was an adolescent male by now, so while he never gave up aikido, he traded T'ai Chi for arnis. Although the Filipino art is not known for peace or spirituality, by now Cyrus was sophisticated enough to pull the 'physical embodiment of an oppressed and marginalized culture' line on his parents, and instantly had their approval. By the time he entered college he was quite formidable, but although his arnis instructor constantly urged him to compete, Maruyama Sensei (aikido) would never allow such a hubristic display.

He continued throughout his four years at Evergreen University, although being away at school meant different instructors to whom he did not grow close. But in any case, he now mostly studied on his own.

Like his father, Cyrus was tall and a pronounced endomorph, and naturally husky. Thus, however excellent his physical condition, he always would seem fat. He also was plagued by severe acne into early adulthood, and when he grew out of it, his face was quite scarred. His mother (herself a very homely woman) felt that money on dermatologists was a submission to the crass materialism of 21st century trash culture, and forbade Cyrus from seeing one - which she sincerely believed would teach him character, the ability to see past the external. He thought seriously of seeing one behind her back, but Maruyama Sensei's teachings of oyakoko (filial piety) prevented such deceit.

Added to his physical problems, Cyrus went to an affluent boys' private school. There, he got along fine with the other boys, but his only contact with girls was at the periodic dances and mixers with affiliated girls' institutions. Thus, he missed out on the opportunity to associate casually with girls on a casual, day-to-day basis - the sort of association that would not only teach him how to relate to girls his age, but also give some perceptive girl the chance to see his many fine qualities. Thus, the sad reality was that his only meetings with the opposite sex were controlled, one-shot events where first, physical impressions were all anyone had to go on. Further bad luck meant that his initial attempts were unwittingly directed at particularly bitchy girls who dealt the coup de grace to any self-esteem he may have harbored regarding his attractiveness to women. By the time he was in the mixed and liberal environment of Evergreen, he was so blinded by his earlier experiences that even when some nice girls showed definite interest, he was completely blind to it, and to this day is unaware of the many opportunities he missed.

Throughout these years, like anyone who devotes their life to the study of an art or skill, he yearned to really USE his martial arts talents. Not out of a desire to hurt anyone, but simply to put his knowledge to the test. Furthermore, these natural inclinations were multiplied tenfold by the belief, perhaps true, that some women would overlook his terrible (and by college not so terrible) ugliness if she knew what a bad ass he was. He yearned for that fight that he just COULD NOT walk away from - cornered by a gang, or maybe saving girl from being assaulted. But while many encounters with bullies came up in his life, he always remained true to Maruyama Sensei's teachings and walked away, in the process developing ironclad integrity.

During college, he majored in accounting, which he was not particularly interested in but did well at, although the plan (his parents' plan) was simply for that to provide useful background for his move to law school. With no other goal in particular aside from his various (unacted upon) crushes and the constant desire to improve his martial arts skills, he went along. But in his second year of law school, his parents were killed in a plane crash. At their funeral he had an epiphany - he could use both his accounting and law training to serve humanity by going into law enforcement. His parents would never allow it in life, but they were sadly gone now, and he suddenly felt free to follow his own path. Of course, these skills were more suited to federal law enforcement, but he chose Lone Star, though he never really admitted to himself that he knew this would give him ample and perfectly justified opportunities to use his martial arts training.

His first year on the street was a rude awakening, as he quickly found the even the best martial arts training doesn't quite work the way it's supposed to in real life. Undeterred, he put in for duty in the barrens, and then transferred to a low-income, working class neighborhood once he realized that that was actually a much more dangerous beat. By the age of 30, he was a successful street officer - smart, tough, and decorated. He'd distinguished himself in a number of firefights, and saved the lives of a number of his peers. He was popular among the men and women in his own and the neighboring precincts - and he was still a virgin (naturally Maruyama Sensei's code precluded gehin (vulgar) and kuzu kuzu (trashy) activities such as any form of extramarital sex).

He had just passed his sergeant's exam, which would mean transfer to another city for an open slot, when he saw her for the first time. She was a rookie detective, herself just tranferred in from her last post. He had had crushes before, but this was different. His sexual isolation had turned him into a classic romantic - a real believer in love at first sight, yet he was mature enough not to let that happen lightly. The moment he say her golden curls, chocolate skin, and muscular figure, he was smitten. He spent the entire shift trying to put her out of his mind, but when he was back that evening from patrol, checking in his Fabrique Nationale, he saw her storm into the room expertly dragging a belowing troll ganger along by the hair, all the while arguing with her partner - a sleazy cop Cy had never liked. He was saying it was a bullshit bust, and she was firing back that she didn't care what sort of 'arrangement' he had with the gang - rape was rape, and if she didn't arrest this scumbag, she'd have to kill him, and that would mean having to kill her partner too, as he'd be a witness. Something in her eyes made the partner back down. And something in her eyes made Cyrus fall irrevocably in love.

Cyrus immediately and without explanation turned down his promotion, baffling his superiors but allowing him to stay in the precinct. He planned for weeks how to ask her out, although in that time he never dared speak to her once. Somehow, luck was never on his side - she never needed back-up when he was in the vicinity, they were never assigned the same details no matter how he used his influence to arrange it. And then, the day he was going to put his plan into motion, actually just go up to her and ask her out, she was assigned her new partner Dan.

Although the attraction between Sahara and Dan grew slowly over the course of years, starting with friendship and cameraderie, to Cyrus it was already too late. In his mind, he simply could not imagine any man not being as smitten with her as he was, and he decided that the two detectives must be attracted to one another. He didn't know what to do at first, but upon thinking about it, he realized that if he really cared for her, her happiness would come first, and if that meant Dan, then so be it. From that time on, though they never knew it, he was a guardian angel to both of them, always working the same shift, always no more than a hot sixty seconds away if they ever called for back up. He kicked some ass with Dan a few times, and they got along well, although the association was always stomach-churning for Cy, who assumed that Sahara and Dan were secretly in a long-term relationship. But he never once got into the shit alongside Sahara, and although he protected her for three years, he never spoke to her once (largely because he avoided her at Lone Star social events, etc.). To her, he was one of the beat cops, nothing more.

During these years, Cyrus applied for every cyber-enhancement program the Star offered its career officers, and also used all his salary, his inheritance, and mortgaged his parents' house to get more cyber, supplemented by the Star's co-pay program.

And then one day, she was gone. Dan was distraught. Everyone was aghast, but no one dared talk openly. Through his network, Cy learned of her arrest and fast-forward conviction. He knew it had to be bullshit, and was inwardly infuriated at Dan for buying the story so easily.

From that day forward, Cy used all of his time trying to quietly figure out what had happened. He started digging, and at last, using his passcodes, dug up some accounting records that looked a bit funny. From there he started to unravel corruption that extended to a great many of the officers he knew and trusted as good cops. He realized that he must have been spotted early on as a straigh arrow, and so never approached by the others about getting in on it.

But he must have dug too deep, because the next thing he knew his house was blown up when he should have been in it. He called the station to let them know that someone had greenlit him, and he was coming in - but outside in the parking lot he was met with a hail of automatic weapons fire. Again, he narrowly escaped, but now he knew that his former brothers were the enemy.

He headed straight underground, only to find his SIN had been tagged 'criminal' and he was being blamed for the deaths of two officers. He knew his life as Cyrus Burger was essentially over - he would have to start over in the shadows completely fresh - and yet he could not leave town - even if it meant taking down the entire Seattle Lone Star establishment, he would exonerate Sahara or die trying.

Unfortunately, that was a big job, with no resources. He had grown up affluent, and then had had society's institutions on his side his whole life. He started small, doing muscle work in the barrens. Finally, he had enough money for surgery - even if he got a fake SIN, one step out of the barrens and the first Lone Star drone that scanned his facial structure would have him. Long since having given up on his looks anyway - and duty-bound never to let any good deed he did for Sahara ever stand in the way of her eventual reunion with her beloved (if faithless) Dan - he had himself cosmetically modified as an ork. A few more months rough stuff in the shadows and he had a fixer and a decent commlink with a solid fake idea. He knew Sahara was out of the slam now, but he didn't dare go anywhere near her - what if the Star caught up with him and she was close by - guilt, or death, by association. So he didn't try to see her. And he also knew by this time that his struggle would be a long one. He wasn't ready to go head-to-head with the Star yet - it would be a long campaign of attrition, during which he intended to spend his time in the shadows gathering the skills and resources to do what one day had to be done - for Sahara.

Okay - if you like it I can flesh it out. I've already run the numbers and I think I can put Cy together the way I want in game terms.
If you don't decide he will fit into your campaign - hey, I had a great time writing him up!
And Shadow - if I made any incorrect assumptions about your character, they are easily edited out.
Take care all, Adam.

[Ankle Biter]

I would like to apply as a technomancer. Here is a quick write up of my character, I have a 400 point technomancer ready, but I imagine that we are working with less points, so I won't post it. There is a bit more to the story that I will add when I get to my next break...

[ Spoiler ]

James Whistler was a street kid orphaned by the crash. A human child of ork/human parentage he had a happy life in the ork underground where he was given the honorary position of "runt of the litter". He always had a way with technology that his 2 tougher more direct Ork sisters appreciated; When they were playing the "traditional" slummers game of breaking and entering he could be relied on to deactivate the alarms. During the crash his Ork father died in vain trying to protect his human mother from looters, this trauma coupled with the fact that James was logged in for at least part of the crash changed him forever. Now he and his sisters eke out a living on the outskirts of society

[Blitz]

How do you post a spoiler anyhow?

[Ankle Biter]

Edit^^^^^ post a spoiler by putting spoiler in these [] to start the spoiler, and using /spoiler in these [] to finish it.

chracter background continued

NB, the concept is tecnological idiot-savante.

[ Spoiler ]

As was earlier mentioned the trauma of the crash changed James's life forever. The medical term (that a street medic was kind enough to give in exchange for a knocked-off commlink) was that he went batshit. Hearing voices, hallucinating, and sometimes falling into a trance so deep that it took both his ork sisters to shake it out of him were all symptoms of his psychois; It was not until the term "technomancer" came into common parlance that they began to suspect what their little big brother actually was. That and the fact that despite him rapidly becoming a total social and physical zero, placing a broken comm into his hands got you a fixed comm in seconds flat.

What was then unknown to his sisters, however, was that James had discovered the virtual world, and that in it he had found his feet again in his virtual persona "Dave Goreman" a old earth 2D comedian who made a show about finding and meeting 52 people (as many as in a deck of cards) called Dave Goreman for a bet.

There is scope in his background to be part of a gang of technomancers, "the comedians" the character concept is an idiot-savant style rebuild of an ottaku character I made for a short SR3 campaign, in which this was his ottaku clan. The leader was "Bill Hicks" and everybody thought that "Eddie Izzard" was wierd...

Anyhow, what do you think so far?

[Shadow]

[JackRipper]

Ankle Biter, I in my opinion think that society as a whole would not understand, and be wary of technomancers, your basic concept seems to hint on that direction. If you would please expand upon your concept, but do not feel you need to write him up in away you feel i want; that is not my intent for you to make a character i want to play but one you do.

I do have questions:

as an idiot-savant is his sister required to attend to him even during runs?

or is he just lacking in personal skills in the meat world?

[JackRipper]

Cedric and Adamu can i get a brief skill set and cyber/bioware or adept powers from you?

Ophis, the game is 2070 Seattle (default i know)

[Cedric Rolfsson]

JackRipper-

[ Spoiler ]

Cynic- Unarmed Combat, Intimidation, Firearms Group, Dodge, Perception

Adept Powers- Increase Reflexes, Mystical Armor, Att Boosts, Astral Perceptions, Killing Hands, Critical Strike.

After having read through Adam's concept I realize that his concept and mine may be almost dead on which would create a redundant set that I'd like to avoid. I think his concept is so kickass that I'll gracefully bow out and submit a modified proposal if you'd like.