Changing the World, One bullet at a time. (Info/Summary thread) Options

[SeptemberAMonth]

What Old Joe said:
The great mother told me the great sisters would be joining me. You seek the corruptor, one with many faces. The corruptor seeks only death. His flight heralds the start of the long night to come. The long night bridges the gap to the twilight. Before you can close the gate, you must first have the key. The twilight is the fear that will consume the morning. Behind the gate the light shall sleep. You must close it before it is opened. You must find the key first. It goes to the devil's home, but it seeks release. The key's actions are not its own. Without aid it will never be freed. The devil's home is where you must go. Where the sun shines hottest and the winds scorch the earth are its signs.

Full conversation

[ Spoiler ]

Joe:"The great mother told me the great sisters would be joining me. You seek the corruptor, one with many faces."
Gretchen: "Such a description could fit many people, but I suspect your great mother knows what she is speaking of. What could you tell us of the corruptor?"
Joe: "The corruptor seeks only death. His flight heralds the start of the long night to come."
Gretchen: "A good thing we intend to clip his wings. What is this long night?"
Joe:"The long night bridges the gap to the twilight. Before you can close the gate, you must first have the key."
Gretchen: "The sun sets and rises again. What do we have to fear from night?"
Joe: "The twilight is the fear that will consume the morning. Behind the gate the light shall sleep."
Gretchen: "Then would we really want to shut it?"
Joe: "You must close it before it is opened."
Gretchen: "As with most gates. To shut it would mean to stop something from moving past."
Joe: "You must find the key first. It goes to the devil's home, but it seeks release."
Sunny: "What would seek refuge and release in such a place?"
Joe: "The key's actions are not its own. Without aid it will never be freed."
Gretchen: "Release I can give it. Where would we seek it?"
Joe: "The devil's home is where you must go. Where the sun shines hottest and the winds scorch the earth are its signs."

[Aidan Pryde]

Hopefully at least one of you will check here in the morning, but it's not looking like I'll be on in the morning tomorrow. I'm not sure when I'll actually get home, so if I'm not on I wouldn't wait around for me.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Well, bollocks.

[ShadowDragon8685]

You know what the ironic thing is?

The rest of us were here more or less on time. September was the last to arrive, at 10:45.

[Aidan Pryde]

Going to put this stuff in list rather than prose, since I'm kind of behind. If I have time I'll retype them later into something a little more readable.

Session 7: (30 July 2072)

• Determine girl (Marika) has been sedated, IV is for hydration
• Decide to check up on Tanaka's ID by asking girl when she wakes up
• Few shots from low calibre uzi's fired at vehicle from apparent members of the "Double R's", no damage or tracers evident
• Decide to head to Loveland instead of Shades' warehouse to buy some clothes and snacks for the girl
• Sunny turns into wolf pup when the girl begins to wake from the sedatives
• When she wakes, girl cries, and only speaks in Japanese.
• Eventually calms down with Gretchen speaking to her in Japanese, and Sunny distracts her as a cute puppy
• Says she wants to go home
• Identifies picture of Tanaka as her uncle
• Says her mom doesn't really like her uncle, but he works a lot with her dad
• That is counter to what Tanaka told them, as he said he wasn't involved with the Yakuza (Group decided this wasn't critical detail)
• She last saw her uncle around new year's
• Her speech is exceptionally polite in referring to her father and more familiar about her mother (Group wasn't sure what this signified, might just be strict upbringing, but it's not super common)
• Gretchen keeps talking to the girl to keep her occupied
• Call Tanaka and arrange meeting
• Tell him that the girl is awakened, which seems to surprise him
• Asks to see Marika to verify she's ok
• No request for extra compensation beyond the original offer, though Tanaka offers that he will be willing to help in the future if there's anything he can do
• Gretchen goes to scout astrally and notes that there are a pair of watchers following the vehicle
• Short discussion, decide to nuke them, since tracking them back to the summoner would take too long
• No ambush evident at meeting place after checking area cameras
• Meet near university
• Tanaka shows up about 5 minutes early, accompanied by large Asian man, closer inspection reveals that he has tattoos peeking out of his chauffer's uniform
• Marika looks at him for a few secodns before shaking her head and heading over to where he is
• He gives shades an envelope with the payment and a commlink, while thanking the group for the help
• Astrally everything seems fine, Gretchen identifies Tanaka as the same person they met last time
• As they are leaving Tanaka drops something under the tire to his car, which Sunny notices
• Driving away crushes the item, but the group picks up pieces of some electronics after Tanaka's car is safely away
• Seems to be a commlink-like device, group decides to keep it

(2 karma session, 15 karma for the run)

Session 8: (31 July - 1 August 2072)

• Downtime
• Shades goes partying the night of the 31st, makes new contact clubber by name of Kat
• Sovereign departs to join her sister (New character incoming)

(No karma)

Session 9: (2 August 2072)

• Sovereign sent Shades a message saying she found a note from Athena on a coffe maker at FedBoeing with a message indicating she'd be at Cyberia all week.
• Attached was an AR/VR baseball cap icon to wear. Didn't appear to be from any existing team.
• Also gave contact info for Ciaran, an ex-merc who might be able to round out the team with the departure of her and her ssiter
• Meet Ciaran (new character aka Ransom)
• Decide to meet Athena
• Shades goes to Cyberia VR club
• Athena asks group to find someone that broke into their system
• Doesn't care about the people that did the actual work as much as she wants to know what/why they were after, which will probably require information on their employers
• Offers 50k with 5k up front, Shades counters that up front seems low, Athena agrees to set up a second payment of 10k on the next Monday provided the group has good leads
• Provides the group with nearly 2 weeks of raw data, as well as a summary
• Summary indicates that Tanaka's went on vacation on 23 July for 2 weeks, a vacation he had taken every year for the last 10 years
• Returned early for 'Personal Reasons' on 28 July, internal review didn't find anything to be concerned about
• Footage and logs show Tanaka just working as normal during the 28-30 July period, though he didn't have any meeting scheduled due to his vacation
• On 1 August a man perliminarily identifed as Tanaka was found dead in Denver
• Internal review triggered by the death revealed that Tanaka's biometrics had been changed on the system
• Shades contacted Athena again to divulge what they knew
• Athena indicated coroner's report would probably be available on Wednesday or Thursday, and that she would forward it.
• She couldn't give access to Tanaka's house, but did provide his addess in a gated community on Vashon Island.
• Shades also asked Athena if she had access to techs that could inspect the electronics they had picked up from the transfer of the girl
• Athena agreed to have them looked at if they were sent to her attanetion and delivered to the downtown office
• A courier was arranged for the fairly high price of 1,000 due to the late hour, time frame and destination
• Team also found that the car Tanaka and his driver had used was last seen at a dock in Tacoma a little over a day ago
• Some investigation reveals it was loaded onto a container ship yesterday
• Quick spirit flyby revealed that it was in a container, turned off, and there wasn't anyone in it (dead or alive)

(2 karma session)

Sessions 10-12 still pending

[UltraFennec]

So, bearer of bad news time.

There's no complicated reason for it, but my circumstances aren't what they were when we started this back with Exalted: Modern pre-Shards in 2011. I'm not a graduate student living alone anymore, and I just don't have the time to sit for 6-8 hours playing an IRC game at this point. My weekends are kinda filled with STUFF that needs doing nowadays, and it's not fair to postpone those things when other people in the house rely on me putting in my share on time and effectively.

Compounding that...well, I'm also just not enjoying Shadowrun that much anymore. It was fun for awhile, blasting around being a super-ninja, but the more I play it the more I'm convinced that the tone of the setting just isn't something I enjoy playing. Too much paranoia and no room to breathe without running into problems that can't be solved or opinions that can't be budged.

That said, I must respectfully bow out of the game. While I was still having regular fun, it was pretty darn cool.

It may seem impertinent, but I'd like to leave some thoughts here so that some things won't go unsaid that I feel need saying. Hopefully I won't offend anyone with my opinion, but if I cared more about that I wouldn't be leaving my thoughts here, would I?

Cass/Aidan: Didn't know you for long, you seem mostly legit. More "by the book" than I would run something, but I'm very seat-of-pants so grain of salt and all that.

Darkone: Your system mastery is redonkulous, but sometimes you overthink things. Shadowrun probably brings this out in everyone, but seriously...that session where we did nothing but abandon the agreed upon plan to re-plan the whole next move for...five and half hours? I nearly had an aneurysm.

If that wasn't you, I apologize for the misattribution, but I could swear it was Alex and Bom for five real-time hours deciding that the plan was terrible and needed fixing.

ShadowDragon: First, I honestly think you did a great job with that short-lived Exalted: Modern game. The very fact that you were so convinced you were terrible and kept yourself on your toes to fix things ended up making you a pretty good ST. Take it from someone that knows, every idea seems like pure shit until you put it out there for people to see. And if it DOES turn out to be shit, it's not a personal thing. Not every idea can BE the best idea. Keep running, keep writing, try again.

Second, sometimes TMI really is TMI. No offense meant, but that bit with the horse in that one SR session? The whole description of all that was totally unnecessary. Just..."her captors tortured, raped, and killed her" would have sufficed without the disturbing imagery, and would also still achieve the desired effect in most of the characters, if not players.
The porn posting in the general OOC chat where anyone could see it? Specifically re-posting it as the first thing September would see when she showed up that day? "not noticing" a link you put up for a concept went straight to Paheal, land of Rule 34? That's about the definition of awkward man. Kinda gauche.

Yes, I did say that I couldn't find an anthro reference for Sunny that wasn't erotic. If you really had to go find more of that for me to see, I would really have preferred you do so privately to keep it out of general view. Did I like them? Sure I did. Doesn't really keep me from going in hindsight "yeah, that was a bad decision on both our parts." Keeping one's fetishes to one's self is a healthy habit in RPGdom, and while I'm pretty freewheeling and tolerant that was pretty awkward overall.



Sorry if I tweaked anyone's melon. Really trying not to offend, but if you feel called out or something...well, I'm not really afraid of calling it like I see it. I hope I didn't make anyone mad or unjustly put upon, but again, not really afraid of reactions.

That's...kind of a shitty apology but I guess I'm only sorry to a point.

[Aidan Pryde]

Sorry to see you go, but you definitely should put real life ahead of game time.

No hard feelings on my part. If you've got any suggestions or feedback you don't necessarily want to post publicly, feel free to send me a PM, it's always handy to have things to consider.

---

For the rest of you: I've been informed we're having company over this weekend (the 17th), so I won't be on. I'll post if that changes, but I don't expect it to. I'm also going to be gone for Easter (31st).

[Darkone]

Sad to see ya go, AGO (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

I have no clue if I contributed much to that. I think I did at first, and then just wanted to get going. IIRC, I started doing stuff without asking just to get us moving xD

I hope you have a better time of it in the future, and wish you luck!

[ShadowDragon8685]

Sorry to see you leave, AGO.

Well, that leaves us in a bit of a pickle, doesn't it? Down to three players, now.

Should we go on a recruitment drive?

[ShadowDragon8685]

So... It's the 24th, almost 11 AM, no sign of September of Aidan. Guys? Are we still on?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Alright, it's April 4. We've missed, what, three, four sessions now?

Are we still playing, or should I saddle up for another ride in the GM's chair?

[Aidan Pryde]

Alright, it's April 4. We've missed, what, three, four sessions now?

Are we still playing, or should I saddle up for another ride in the GM's chair?

I'll be on tomorrow, but will need to leave early. I'll talk to you guys then if not before, but it's likely I'm not going to have the free time to play for at least a couple months.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I'll be on tomorrow, but will need to leave early. I'll talk to you guys then if not before, but it's likely I'm not going to have the free time to play for at least a couple months.

Alright.


So, then, I have to pose the next question:

Do we...
1: Have someone else take up GMing again.
2: Have me take up the mantle again... Or...

Would anyone be interested in some Decipher Star Trek RPG, set in roughly the timeline of Star Trek Online?

[ShadowDragon8685]

For anyone who missed it, here was Aiden's short version on IRC.

[11:01] <Cass> Howdy
[11:56] <Cass> Hrmm, both still afk? I need to leave in about 45 mins, so I suppose I'll just give you the short version of stuff for when you get back. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer a few weeks ago, she had surgery earlier this week. Doctors don't expect it to be life threatening, but she's still going to be starting chemo and radiation at the end of the month. So, I'm going to be gone next week for sure, probably
[11:56] <Cass> the rest of April. After that it's going to be really hit or miss through July, possibly longer depending on how things go.
[11:56] <Cass> If you're still around and interested in playing once things get settled, I'll be happy to pick back up with GMing
[12:33] <Cass> Anyhow, I should head out so I can actually get some lunch. Feel free to send me a PM on DS if you need anything from me.

Youch, man. Sorry to hear that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif) I hope your mom gets well, and yeah, you take all the time you need.