[X] My Assistant

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

And what did we get? "Stranger Danger". *Shakes Head*

Actually I was making a reference to an old episode of South Park where the parents are all worried about child kidnapping and hire the owner of the town's chinese restaurant to make a wall around it (because he is chinese and everybody knows that chinese are good at making walls). Every time the chinese man finishes the wall a group of mongolian raiders show up and make a hole in it.
Meanwhile, the parents see more news about child kidnapping saying that the most likely person to kidnap a child is a relative or parent. The parents start fighting each other asking where are they going with their kids, etc, etc, until they agree that the best solution is to send the kids out of town to somewhere they don't know because then, they would be safe of being kidnaped... hehehhe

[Snow_Fox]

The other idea is that a school bus is great camoflague. No speed but a lot of carrying space and in the right place, who'd look twice? In NYC RL the Bronx zoo is free on Wednesdays. The streets around the place on that day are clogged with yellow buses and who'd look twice at one in the neighborhood if you set a pattern a few days in advance?

[kjones]

Snow_Fox, do you remember the opening scene of The Dark Knight? That's what I'm thinking here.

[Dumori]

I think there are a lot of people in this world who would pay a couple grand for a busload of children. In the world of SR, there's probably even more.

However, you have to consider that there are measures in place to handle these sorts of things. IRL, this wouldn't work because nowadays every kid has a cell phone. A clever bus driver could lie and say something like "The bus is breaking down, we need to go to a garage!" and buy himself a little time, but I think that it wouldn't be too long before word got out, and the school would get very worried when the bus didn't show up on time. (My brother is a teacher, and they take anything involving missing kids very seriously.)

In the world of SR4, I suspect that buses would be tracked even more closely, since it's so easy to do - GridGuide and whatnot. And you'd have to turn off or jam every kid's commlink. I'm not saying this is impossible, merely that it raises the bar.

So Faraday cage the damn bus. Yes when it doesn't show up with in X time shit will hit the fan but you'll have likely planed for it any way.

[suoq]

So Faraday cage the damn bus. Yes when it doesn't show up with in X time shit will hit the fan but you'll have likely planed for it any way.

Wait. Are you saying that when Little Billy's commlink goes dead that DOESN'T raise an alarm?

The parents have bought a security system for watching their kid that can be circumvented by the kid by just turning the commlink off?

That's not a dystopia, that's an idiocracy.

[Tiralee]

Pft - a child-eating magical critter that likespain and destruction?

Hi Folks, meet Bob, your friendly Master Shedim Bus Driver!

After inhabiting Bob for a while(After Bob died of a heart-attack while watching The Urban Brawl Game), the shedim realises that it's got a totally-awesome setup if it's smart. So, plotting, it makes a few purchases (a signal-jammer and somewhere quiet and out of the way) and then one day it picks up it's load of kids, drives to school, persuades the meatpuppet there to mark them as absent <sick> and fires up the Jammer before driving off, ready to invest 20+ kids with Shedim....

At the end, it save a kid for last, inhabits the kid, makes like Bob killed himself in a weird way and then has the busload of shedim make their way home, complaining of "this really boring bus trip Bob took us on, and when we got out, he wasn't there. I wanna go home...."
The parent's freak, the school keeps it under wraps because they don't want a breath of scandal, the PoPo check it out, scratch their heads and write it off as some weird cult thing and then, well...

"Hey, wanna join my club? Meet us up in the music room during lunch, ok?" (Italics for smarted shedim - it's more likely to be soundproofed.)


Hmmm. Yep, I could run this one.


-Tir.

[Daddy's Litt...]

Wait. Are you saying that when Little Billy's commlink goes dead that DOESN'T raise an alarm?

The parents have bought a security system for watching their kid that can be circumvented by the kid by just turning the commlink off?

That's not a dystopia, that's an idiocracy.

No, children are required to put their comm link in 'autistic mode' when at school, the same way RL they have to turn off cell phones now. It is the early grab which makes more sense than the evening one. Though replacing a legitimate bus driver and having the teachers dutifully load the children on to the bus is also creepy. The teachers would ensure the creep gets a full load.

[CanRay]

Something I just thought of... Don't confuse the Yellow School Bus with the Gold Lone Star Prison Bus!

[pbangarth]

Pft - a child-eating magical critter that likespain and destruction?

Hi Folks, meet Bob, your friendly Master Shedim Bus Driver!

Love the idea!

persuades the meatpuppet there to mark them as absent <sick> and fires up the Jammer before driving off, ready to invest 20+ kids with Shedim....

How would this persuasion work?

"Hey, wanna join my club? Meet us up in the music room during lunch, ok?" (Italics for smarted shedim - it's more likely to be soundproofed.)

How many could be possessed before it finally gets out? 20%? 50%? All? When do you start working on the teachers? Probably the music teacher first, huh?

[Erik Baird]

Well, if you make a point to control/corrupt the bus checker and the music teacher first with a normal shedim, the operation would go a bit smoother. How many shedim can a master shedim control?

Dang, that is teh ebil.

[Tiralee]

Yep...

Ms Janice Honeywell straightened with a shock. Her music class was here to practise as usual, but they looked a little...off, in her eyes. A bit more wan, tired and even hungry.
It might have been her imagination, but ever since that unfortunate incident with the Bus-Drivers mental breakdown, it seemed that the school had gotten quieter, seemed colder than usual. She slapped on her professional smile, "Good afternoon class, have we all practised your particular piece?"
Ashley Johnson, usually a rather quiet and retiring type, strode to the front of the class and wordless surveyed Ms Honeywell.
Janice shivered uncontrollably, her school-issue uniform feeling as protective as tissue under the child’s ancient gaze. She struggled to overcome her panic, "Wha-what is it, Ash, Ashely?"
The look on the child's face was dispassionate, weighing up something the adult couldn’t fathom.
Ms Honeywell could feel her thoughts slow to treacle as Ashley considered her instructor. Reflexively, her fingers stroked a faceless coin passed down through family, worn paper-thin through the ages of hands holding it close in times of need – better than worry beads, it always seemed to feel warm and reassuring, even when it stuck to her hand during her 8th winter.

Ashley shrugged, “Yes Ms Honeywell, but some of us will need to continue to use the music rooms for practise during lunchtime.” And returned to her usual place, in the near-back, almost lost by the rest of the children..

“I, urm, certainly,” Gabbled Janice. She knew something was wrong, but her thoughts scrabbled off of it like claws on glass. “It, it’s good to know that other students are so passionate about their musical education, I would have to know who would be using the rooms as Mr Gownsman wants to make sure you’re all…”
“Mr Gownsman knows.” Janice blinked as Ashley’s voice floated out hollowly from the mass of the students now arranging themselves into their lesson positions. “He should have sent you the memo.”
With a slight frown, Ms Honeywell glanced at her desk com. Yes, there it was, and co-signed by Deputy Head Davids as well, a rare concurrence as the Headmaster and Deputy hated each other with a passion but…

From the corner of her eye, Janice saw Ashley’s expression again and swore to herself that if she could make it through this lesson, she’d find her lost Uncle’s hidden comcodes and call the links he promised she’d never have to call.

And she was never coming back to this room.
Never.

[Tiralee]

BTW, if a GM couldn't make a proper creepy-as-hell Halloween run out of this, it's time to hand in their books and go play Barbie.


If you want, bother me for details on this. Note: I do SR3, not 4th ed. If you want the basics, then you'd have to do some conversions.
From memory, M-Shedim are able to invest a number of Shedim equal to their force/month. (I might be misremembering this, it's been a loooong while.) This is increased and made easier if the area is aspected towards them (as per normal background/threat rules).
So, while planning his great investment while inhabiting Bob, the M-Shedim could be investing Shedim in the local homeless population and ordering them to keep quiet and say still in the "Investment Area", a space that he's hired and set aside for their terrible plan.

The S-Shedim could, in turn, be working to aspect the investment site with the terrible background count required and bring about easier conversions.

I like the thought of a sensitive teacher picking up on the vibe and running out of the school, screaming for help from an uncle long dead, but still owed favours by various parties.

And the long, winding trail that the Shadowrunnners would have to follow, in the legwork and the various data-trains the M-Shedim might be unfamiliar with, and tracking down the evil to it's school lair.



Best part is - it's a lose/lose SR. No one's going to believe the kids were filled with Shedim, no one. Especially after they waste an entire school, "just to be sure".




-Tir
"Making my players cry softly to sleep for 5 years and counting..."

[Badmoodguy88]

"Fast Times at Fairmont High" by Vernor Vinge is a non distopian view of futuristic schooling with heavy use of AR and matrix. It is a good story that could definitely fit into shadowrun. In that world there is a real school but many students are there as AR icons. One student for example you never really figure out if they are some ruthless talent hunting adult, or some ruthless talent hunting student. People go on virtual reality tours and walk around the real world as AR people. This is possible because very tiny sensors and wireless routers are almost literally everywhere public. The focus of the story was students planning there Fairmont High's senior projects.

[Erik Baird]

Which book(s) from SR3 talk about the shedim? I remember reading a fluff story about female runner/ assassin and a master(?) shedim in one of the books, but I can't seem to find it in the books I currently have.

[Badmoodguy88]

In 4e it was in Street Magic under magical threats. Check out the 3e equivalent. It is probably that or critters, but I don't think it is critters.

[Angelone]

Regular Shedim are in Year of the Comet (Edit- Page 87). Master Shedim are in Threats 2 (Edit- Page 46).

[Snow_Fox]

Long story short DLN- the answer is YES.

[Badmoodguy88]

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=...b5cdb1806fef4aa
The first link has an excerpt of the story Fast Times at Fairmont High if anyone is interested. I think it really is what it would be like with matrix 2.0. AR everywhere, silent communication between students using lasers and wireless.