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[ting-bu-dong]

Hi,
i am planning on running a run set in the Seattle sewers which involves a rat shaman on the loose who tries to occupy the more remote regions of the sewers as his personal territory, with the runners trying to stop him.

What kind of encounters (not necessarily combat ones), aside from hordes of rats and a sewer ghost or two (are the sewers a city domain?), might the runners run into?

tbd

[Tanka]

If the sewers are being occupied (lived in, used extensively, etc. by (meta)humans), then they are hearth. If they aren't, city.

Possibly total darkness and needing a way to find their ways through the tunnels without tripping over every little stick and floater in the way. Hopefully none of them took Eye-Light Systems and Low-Light. Otherwise, that idea dies. =\

If they just have Low-Light, then they are screwed. No light means Low-Light doesn't have the light there to use, so it doesn't work. Mwaha.

[Siege]

Dude, that's why you carry flashlights. And lots of batteries.

And a grappling hook with a 60' line. Don't ask.

-Siege

[Tanka]

Heh. Nah, my team came up with something far more resourceful.

Physics Professor with minors in many maths has a gun with a laser sight on it. He also has a nice little rangefinder eye mod. Guess what he does, since none of us have any sort of light?

Shines gun about, watching the ranges for how the walls change in angle and everything. Tells us exactly what direction to move in. That was damned intelligent of the guy.

However, I'm really curious. Why the grappling hook and the 60' line?

[ShieldT]

Well, there's always the mutant cliche: The toxic alligator shaman...
I've seen cartoon fights (mainly Batman) that take place in sewers with a lot of fast moving water in places and intake/outake pipes. Not to mention detoxification filters and such...
Maybe even a little illegal dumping by a megacorp of Hydrofluoric Acid and Heavy Metals? Extremely good info on Heavy Metal Poisoning: www.leeds.ac.uk/acb/annals/annals_pdf/May99/267.pdf
How about another team of runners?
I'm guessing there's enough of Mother Earth around the pipe to prevent easy escape by astral forms, though they'll breeze right by manhole covers.

[Siege]

I'll give you points for imagination, but that just goes all to hell in a practical scenario -- like, well, fighting.

Just take a flashlight (or several) and a glow stick for good measure. Tape it to your gun, strap it to your head. In a fit of panic, I even yanked our Media's camera off his shoulder pad and taped a flashlight to it for good measure.

Since you ask, I was assembling gear for one of my GM's sewer crawls. The techie asks if we need the baton with 60' of climbing rope and hook. I said (to my everlasting regret) "Are you kidding? It's a sewer."

Naturally, we end up at the end of a sewer tunnel with a horde of zombies at our back and a 45' foot drop in front of us. (Think of the fugitive movie with Harrison Ford/Tommy Lee Jones facing the waterfall, only underground.)

After we got out of the sewer, the techie attached a pain chip to my character's cyberware and the receiver to a baton with 60' of climbing rope and a grappling hook. If it was ever 10 feet or more from my body, my nervous system went into convulsions.

Did I mention he was upset?

-Siege

[Sunday_Gamer]

Depends where in the sewers he is, perhaps he chose his lair well.

Maybe he uses his magics to sneak into his territory as the only access is through a rough patch of the Ork Underground controlled by a ruthless gang? Unless of course you happen to be able to shape change into a rat and crawl through some very small pipes.

In this case the threat would be the gang, but you can easily replace the gang with whatever else tickles your fancy. Ghouls? A Vampires lair? A secret corporate facility that only a sneaky rat shaman bastiche could have found and chosen to build a lair behind? Whatever. Some people in trouble with any of the above can also work if your team are the sort of people who help people.

In terms of possible threats I would say, if I had to throw out a small list.

Gangers (Ork gangs, organ leggers, just plain crazies)
Ghouls
Bugs
Devil Rats (which I gather you were already planning)
Any critter you damn well please, you'd be amazed what you can find under Seattle ;)

Sunday

Sewers could be City, Hearth or even a water domain depending on where you were. Spirits could be many different kinds. Let your imagination run wild...

[Siege]

And if you really want to screw with your players, remember that lizards, snakes and gators don't show up on thermo.

Cold-blooded creatures generally don't. Except lawyers, for some reason.

The merc in our party was insanely glad he saved up for the ultrasound sight and goggles.

-Siege

[ting-bu-dong]

Hi,
thanks a lot for all the fast replies, maybe it helps if I introduce the group:

Arabian mercenary (cliche: grenades, AK, explosives, good knowledges in chemistry)
Finnish rigger/decker (huge vehicle and drone resources)
American elven spy (high dexterity, stealth, etc.)
Bulgarian elven gunfu-adept (has four Ares Predator with quick draw holsters...)

So, visibility will not be a problem as the elven will be happy with a flashlight and their lowlight vision, and as far as I remember, at least one of the other characters had infrared vision, aside from that, that can be acquired for ¥ 250 or so with infrared goggles, so visibility is out of debate).

Your ideas are all great, but the thing is we have had most stereotype elements in the previous runs. Three runs ago the players ran into a toxic fox shaman, and just yesterday they had some unpleasant encounters with a rival runner group.

Aside from that, keep the ideas coming.

tbd

[Large Mike]

I've alwayse made sewers its own domain. Then again, I make alot of things their own domain, because occult knowledge taints my shadowrun playing.

[Munchkinslayer]

What about methane being ignited by a muzzle flare?

[Tiralee]

Ohh, underground!

Unstable walls/ceilings are a fun addition (Admittedly not to recent sewers. BTW - sewers are designed for a 150 year life span, at least...which means there might be a few areas not as structually-sound as they should be...)

Undead! - not Ghouls, but the Shedim. God, they're fun.

Various critters, escaped corp experiments and diseases...

Toxic spirits...maybe a free toxic? (Only if you hate your team...)

Traps! Claymores, Monowire...all rather difficult to see and not exactly fun to discover....

Flow rates that change with the day - I mean, there's a higher level of..."fluid"...in the morning, and a little after work ends.

The organlegger part is fun, have the shaman find it convenient to dispose of excess visitors for the ever handy organlegger market... Those guys are about as welcome as Bug Spirits.

Bugs! 'Nuff said!

Wendigo! - ehewwwwwwwww.

Flammable sewer fluids are more likely than gas build-ups, makes firing those incendiry rounds in an enclosed space just that little less fun. Not to mention bringing down the house.

L.

[mfb]

how about the one thing you never expect to encounter in a sewer--maintenance workers.

[thunderchild]

Treasure hunters (think of the amount of wedding rings and shit that get dropped in the drains)

Bats (maybe some kinda quirky bat shaman aswell, imagine the bat from Fern Gully, on acid and human :D )

An Eco-Terrorist Cell (where better to hide)

A B&E gang who use the sewers and mini drones to get into peoples houses and unlock doors ( hey... its far fetched but..... )

An Underground Albino Techno Club

[Siege]

IR/thermo won't work underground any better than lowlight.

And like I noted -- cold-blooded creatures don't show up thermo...like vampires.

-Siege

[Tanka]

Seige said:

[Namer18]

Pirates! There's water there are places to hide, a way out to the ocean, who wouldn't want to be a sewer pirate.


Namer18

[ShieldT]

How about an ongoing firefight on the surface with munitions, let's say active grenades, that just happen to roll into a couple of storm drains... Could even have a day old battle and your team roll 'Media' or 'Street' to see if they remember it as they pass under the block "Oh yeah, you see the thing on the trid last night? They never found the superweapon/pack with the grenades/body."
Don't forget this is a coastal city.
Anyone have a website link/personal experience with Seattle's/major modern city sewers?
Oh yeah, Pacific Northwest, probably a couple leeches.

[Siege]

Coastal city? Eek. You might some really nasty things wandering into those sewers...

-Siege

[mfb]

vampires are not, as far as i know, cold-blooded in SR. if they were, they'd have some sort of vulnerability to cold, since they're living beings instead of undead freaks.

[Buzzed]

Two feet deep fast rushing water against you is a definate time to whip out the grapple gun and 60' of line. What else are you going to pull yourself upstream with?

[Siege]

That does beg the question: does a vampire have a heart beat?

Or are they just living things with unusual dietary requirements?

-Siege

Edit: Oooh, evil idea Buzzed. Characters have to make Str or Athletics rolls to stand against the current without bracing against the wall. Which makes it difficult to fire either way, neh?

[Buzzed]

Here is another evil idea if you hear something downstream.

Evil Downstream Idea Recipe

Ingedients:
1 Nurf football
1 roll of duct tape
1 grenade or commercial explosive

Preparation:
Duct tape the grenade or explosive onto the Nurf football.

Cooking time:
Prime the explosive and toss the football downstream. Takes 10 - to 15 seconds for it to float around the corner in the sewer. Wait until you hear an explosion.

Times may vary. Makes alot of small bloody proportions. Serve when hot.

Another evil idea:

Place the runners in a situation where they get stuck inside a sewer compactor system as it activates. While they try to figure out how to reverse the closing walls before they turn them into more sewer mush, some sort of genetic trash freak of nature lurks about in the water around their feet. And to make it more suspenseful, have this take place inside a big ass military space station.

[Tanka]

*cough*Star Wars*cough* :P

[Siege]

Yeah, I think he was being a little sarcastic.

Call it a hunch. :grinbig:

-Siege