CARNIVAL, New Shadowrun Adventure Options

[knasser]

EDIT: If you are a player and your GM is going to, or might, run this adventure, please do NOT click on the link below.

On the Tacoma air - so often laced with heavy metals, the acid tang of refineries, assembly lines and the vapours of the sluggish Puget Sound - another scent had overlain itself. Cotton candy, crepes and toffees mingled with the industrial air, making it sweet and cancerous all at once. A wide lot, vacant yesterday and long ago bulldozed empty of anything but tarmac and the memory of jobs, was now filled with tents, trucks and temptations for children of all ages. The Carnival had come to Seattle, nestling itself in the city's empty spaces as it had once settled itself in farmers' fields, unheeding of Time. A few beefy trolls manhandled the poles of the last tent with ease and a dwarf, with grease paint forcing a permanent smile on his face, jammed fliers under the wipers of the cars crawling past in the slow rush hour traffic.

“Come to the carnival,” they said. “An experience you'll never forget.”


Direct link is here:
http://knasser.me.uk/content/shadowrun/carnival.pdf

Thanks,

-K.

[Meriss]

I'll say knasser (:eek: yikes!). I like the dark tone you built in the adventure, although I was thinking less Rocky Horror Show, more Moulan Rouge. But when in Seattle....

[jklst14]

Even though I'm not a big fan of immortal elves, I like it!

[BookWyrm]

Chilling. Even if you don't include Harlequin, it's a fascinating read.

[knasser]

Thank you. I tried very hard to make it creepy. I didn't mean for it to look like the Rocky Horror Show. I suppose that's because Rebus is androgynous, or maybe it's just the sheer mass of degraded characters.

As to Harlequin... you can remove him from the adventure without any visible effect if need be. I just have always had a more sinister take on the character than most, I think, and something like this was just too good an opportunity to miss. It would be one way to introduce the dark clown to the players without having to do the whole Harlequin-Horror metaplot. Just make sure he's not in the players faces until near the end.

Thunderball and Hotfoot were inspired by a thread here a while ago about the Elemental Effect adept power and I realised just how cool it actually was.

I was also trying for a real blend of cyberpunk and horror, making sure that plenty of 2070 tech was integrated into everything.

Anyway, it took me quite a long time to do, and I'd really appreciate comments and feedback from anyone who's read it. Criticisms and corrections are also useful (please be kind).

Thanks,

-K.

p.s. If anyone prints this out, I'd recommend skipping the first page!

[G.NOME]

It reads really well. I like that you mapped everything out but didn't make it a linear, cookie-cutter adventure like some of the adventure books are. It gives the GM a lot more opportunities to work this into their adventures.

[Kalvan]

If Hotfoot is Brazillian, replace Spanish as his native language with Portuguese.

[Meriss]

Correction: I was expecting less horror knasser, more funny elf in a panda costume.

[Kyoto Kid]

...from the responses it sounds pretty good. I'll have to open the link when I get home since my work PC is like molassess when you try to open a PDF.

Harlequin? That has me muy interested. The only IE I ever liked because he is so bloody freakin twisted.

[Note to my player group] If you haven't already, please do not open the above link.

[treehugger]

May i point out that if Layla is from Teheran, she really should be Persian, not arabic.
Culturaly, religiously and ethnicaly they are really different. (as much as a russian and a spanish i'd say)

[knasser]

[bibliophile20]

knasser, don't worry, you'll be hearing from me this summer when my campaign gets into swing.

[Unarmed]

I like it a lot. At first I was thinking that it would be like the Carivale HBO tv show, but overall I get much more of a deadlands crossed with shadowrun kinda vibe. I may have to run it with my group when it's my turn to GM again.

[Tashio]

Looks great, nice to have ideas and plot hooks without the railroading aspect alot of modules have. Also a change from the general run of the mill options you usualy see.

Typo:

Trid Illusions:

stick a PCs face on a corpse on a gibbet

Should be corpse of a gibbet


I'm only really familar with Harlequin from the original Harly module where his main weapon of choice was a rapier, though I guess his habits may have changed over the years + other modules. A long sword just seems very cluncky on him. The rapier being a weapon of finess and technique suits his image better in my opinion.

[knasser]

[Meriss]

knasser one thing you may wish to add/edit in when you are editing is the fact that most fairs and carnivals have this weird frantic energy. Try going to one and you'll realize what I mean, it's like the whole place never sleeps. Now in your adventure it might be twisted or warped, or Rebus might be encouraging it to tire out potential victims, for himself or the others. Just a thought.

[knasser]

[ornot]

Just downloaded it and scanning through it.

Looks like a very nice setting although I've not really digested it

There are some inconsistincies in the text describing Rebus. A fair few "he" instead of "s/he" and "his" instead of "hir", which may or may not be intentional.

[Fezig]

On a semi-related note my group runs in a rotating GM fashion with all of us potentially GMs (though really only 3 of the 5 are likely to run a game), and one of the other GMs ran your other adventure (the name escapes me at the moment, the one about the ghouls.).

Anyhow, I just wanted to compliment you on the atmosphere embedded in the run as well as all the description and atmosphere you've invested in this one. I'm very interested in seeing if it also ends up being run at the group. All in all I'd say you make some very fun and well put together runs. Keep up the really good work.

[knasser]

[Dogsoup]

I like that you put out ambitious pdfs with artwork and layout, gives off a much more polished feel than just text on an empty html page. It also shows that one doesn't have to turn to D20 to find decent third-part productions. Thanks! :nuyen: :nuyen: :nuyen:

[knasser]

[fistandantilus4....]

Thread Ressurect

I loved the mixing tech holograms with illusion, and the mionr spirits flitting about all over the place.

I thought it was funny that I was thinking the only thing it was missing was a minor , wicked free spirit, then read over Layla's stats. Very cool. I'm honestly wishing the group that I ran through the Harlequin adventures wasn't so damn strong now, so that I could run them through this.

As to thoughts on the games contents:

I definitely think that the group needs to have a compelling reason to stay in that f-ed up place. I think searching for the kidnap victim, or smuggled goods is great. Partly because they can't just get weirded out and leave, but especially because it requires them to look around everywhere.

Including Harlequin is a nice touch too.There's really no one else that could fulfilll that role I think. Especially becuase he won't necessarily do anything.

The only thing I would like to see is a more detailed adventure for one of the two recommended paths. It seems like it would be an awesome game with a more thorough plot line. Working out the possible encounters in detail along a more typical adventure adventure format, sort of a Point A Point B, Point C, with a bunch of Point b1, B2,etcs for investigating different areas.

Basically I think it's a great idea and deserves to be developed more. I'd love to play it if you ran it, just to see it all rolled out.

[knasser]

Thanks for the feedback. Always appreciated. I haven't actually run this for a group yet, so if you fancy dropping by the UK, you'd be welcome to sit in when I do. ;)

I agree with the under-developed adventure side of things. The truth is that having written 20+ pages I starting to flag. And something like this is best tailored to a specific group. It would be very easy to have a loved one go missing and the clues lead to the carnival, for example. Of course, it wouldn't be certain. Just a clue that someone in there might have had something to do with it. For horror, I'm a big believer in concealing the scale of the threat. That allows for a nice shock when you pull back and show the players what is all around them.

Regarding your group's strength, they must be fairly strong. One of the things that I realised when I put this together is how underated the geomancy power is. The Carnival as written has a background count of 4 and that's going to make a hefty difference to magicians and adepts. As the whole thing takes place in a big crowded area with tonnes of people, the samurai types aren't going to be able to take in anything less concealable than a pistol (cyberweapons not withstanding) and the magical nature of the opposition is going to put them at a disadvantage. But if the group really are too strong, it could probably be a one-shot adventure for a Halloween game.

I really enjoyed writing the adventure. What I'd really like to do would be to write some adventure modules for FanPro / IMR, but the impression I got was that they're not interested in adventures. It's a shame because if it was paid work, I'd be able to take the time to do something a lot more comprehensive and filled out. Not little old things like this. ;)

[Ravor]

knasser, all-in-all I like it and plan on using it in some form minus Harlequin once I get back to DMing after my wife's campaign is over.

However, once thing that I've wondered, the two Adepts don't seem to be aspected towards Black Magic, and although I haven't ran the numbers on their powers yet, wouldn't they also lose 4 points of Magic as well?