My Assistant
Site Message
(Message will auto close in 2 seconds)
  |
 3rd edition smuggler campaign writeup, Narrative write up of games - feedback welcome. |
 Mar 22 2020, 09:39 PM
Post
#101
|
|
|
Wordsmith  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740  |
Smuggler session 124 is now live and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57825238433964/
Apologies for the wait - this session was played a couple of weeks ago, but as I'm sure everyone is aware by now, C19 is shaking things up a bit. I cancelled the game two weeks ago, based on the risks and how we thought this was going to go, and it seemed like the best course of action. Both Lee(Marius) and I work in the food industry, Justin (Hunter) is a clinician, and both Ali (Tads) and Jez(Aswon) work in government positions - so having meetings and additional vectors for catching something when we didn't need to just didn't seem worth the risk. Fozzy(Kai) and Tom(Shimazu) are graphics designer and PC engineer respectively, and while we love them dearly, are not in the same "key worker" category that most of us are. Bizarrly enough, work has been really busy the last week or two, with everyone wanting a laptop, or a remote desktop setting up - or turning up with a laptop that has been "at home" for the last 2 years and has long since dropped off the domain... Strange. So - what happened. Fairly straight-forward really, they got from the smuggler base in the med, down the refuelling stop on the north african coast. I'd originally planned for them to end up here after chatting with Ludmilla - but they didn't ask her about fuel at all, or give her chance to ask with what they did - so she "asumed" it was taken care of. So instead of getting fuel at the "preferential" rate, they paid the "gouged" rate from the chart, because the guy had no idea the team were running for his employer. Oh well...it's their profit margin! But, they're in the desert now, and getting ready to hunt scorpions, and I have a random encounter table ready for them to have some fun with during their search. Hopefully at some point when this is all blown over and we're back to gaming, we can have some fun with random desert war tech, desert nomads, and maybe a chance meeting with a man wandering the desert for 40 days and nights, searching for a message from his god. We'll have to see. Here are the notes from the game:
Stay safe everyone, keep your distance, and be one of the survivors of VITAS and not a victim. |
 |
 
|
|
Mar 30 2020, 06:11 AM
Post
#102
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Smuggler session 125 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57853603488964/
We'd originally been scheduled not to run last Tuesday - the wife and I were due to be on holiday. Of course C19 shot that plan down, but we both decided to take our leave and just stay at home. I got some quality warhammer miniature building time, she caught up with her fan-fiction habbit, and neither of us did the filing or tided up the cellar. So, all things in hand then. But, as we were in the country, and with access to stuff, we decided to run the game after all. By the time we'd got it sorted, Lee (Marius) was unavailable. As he and Hunter were at the chopper while the rest of the team went exploring, I advised Justin (Hunter) not to connect in - I didn't want to throw stuff at him without another player being there, and felt it was unfair to make him stay online if there wasn't much activity for him to get involved in. That on the other hand meant I could concentrate on the magic squad while they went off to look for scorpions. A few rolls on the random encounter table saw them find some good stuff (the lucky things - it could have gone so much worse!) including a plot seed for something to come later. We were running over discord, using just a standard voice channel, and it seemed to work ok. There wasn't any combat, and the skill checks worked out ok, as did the spell casting. Whether it works as well on Tuesday with the full team, and/or combat we will have to see... As usual here's the notes from the session:
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 5 2020, 01:09 PM
Post
#103
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Smuggler session 126 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57876207613964/
A short session this week, as we struggled somewhat to get Marius online on discord - a number of tech issues slowed us down, and I think we didn't start until 7:30pm, so it cut into the session time a fair bit. Still - we got there in the end, and hopefully that's sorted now for next Tuesday. Other than that, they had a reminder about using the bug scanner on stuff they find lying around - I was very surprised that nobody remembered to do this, but at least the distance from the Azzie air base really cut down on what they could feasibly send in terms of a response, and I was pretty certain that they should be able to confound a single fighter jet, while at the same time not taking liberties. On the off chance that they did try to make a rumble of it, I'd statted the fighter up using the example from Rigger 3, and given it a simple loadout: Handle 5, Speed 150/1800, Accel 80, Body 7, Armour 12, Sig 6, Auto 4, Pilot NA, Sensor 9, Cargo 3, Load 2600, Seating 1e, 4 External missiles,(Block 1 bandits, 14D even across 10m), 2 sidewinder equivalents (bonus vs airbourne targets, penalties against ground, 8D AV), one nose mounted 30mm cannon (13D APDS bursts, fully compensated), Thermal Baffles 2, ECM 4 That should have made a mess of the chopper or required some *very* fancy flying to avoid, whilst not being something that would cause a TPK. They moved to somewhere the other side of the crater, landed up ok and then went hunting the scorpions. I've written the scorpions up like this: Glow Scorpions : Approx 2m long, with a 1.5m tail/stinger, these scorpions are a blood-red colour, and glow slightly in the dark. Their claws are sharply barbed and the stinger is the length of a couger fineblade B5, Q4X4, S3, CX, I3/5, W5, E2, R4, Init 4+1D6, CP 6, Attack 5M, Armour 6, Powers: Concealment (Self), Venom (10D physical, onset 2 rounds), Tremor sense, Movement (Earth), Magic Sense Effective signature in sand/rock = 8, with a stealth roll of 4 dice on top+concealment (2). Use the movement power to "burrow" through sand and make pop up attacks randomly, prioritising magical targets using their magic sense Next weeks session will be the fight kicking off - so with how slow combat can be normally, compounded by us working over discord - next weeks write up may also be quite short! I mean, in summary it will be "scorpions attack, big fight, probably someone gets stung, anti-venom used, fight fight fight, capture critters." Boom - there you go, down to 16 words from the normal 6-8 thousand <wink> *ahem*. So, here are the notes from the session, to compare against the narrative.
Once again, just a reminder that I would love to get feedback on this. I see the view count going up each week, so I figure people are still checking in on it - but it really would be good to get an outside view or thoughts on how the game is going, the team or the npcs / story. Stay safe everyone, and keep making those VITAS resistance checks! |
|
|
|
|
Apr 15 2020, 05:15 PM
Post
#104
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Session 127 is live (was live) and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57903129873964/
Something a little different this week. Normally the narrative is told purely from the players POV, and I have to be careful not to give away meta knowledge to them. Although it would make for a better narrative and fit in with most traditional fiction styles where you get to see the story unfold normally from multiple angles, these writeups are normally very one sided - and leave the reader as much in the dark as the player, when the players didn't make a vital skill test or "get" a clue or subtle point. Or just decide to go off piste and strike out in a new direction. This week though I put in some "other side" to try and make the action a little clearer, and add some detail, It's not anything that will "spoil" the story for the players when they read the narrative - if anything I'm hoping that knowing that it was a personal decision to come back in the fighter jet was a personal action, and that might make it more meaningful to Marius, and by extension the others. Or it might just pad the word-count on a week where we had a short sesion anyway. You be the judge. So, in short - they snagged the scorpions, but got revisted by the fighter jet that was looking for them last week. It caught them on the ground, a sitting duck. It had air to ground missiles, and a 30mm autocannon. It did not go in the players favour. So, by the end of the session, they'd lost their air transport, and were stuck with a 4 (5 if they squeeze) seater off-roader, 6 crew, 150km of desert to the only place they know off, 2 of the most venomous creatures in the world, that need to go in a pair of dog crates designed for springer spaniels, and a whole masss of assorted junk, spare clothing, guns, ammo, disguises, food, water, fuel, electronic supplies and gear. They've got 10 litres of stuff and a 2 litre bucket. Gonna be some hard choices ahead! Here are the notes behind the write up - from here you can see how much has been added in terms of narrative this week!
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 19 2020, 01:42 PM
Post
#105
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Another week of lockdown, another game over discord. Things are settling into a routine now though, and seem to be going ok. So, as usual this weeks writeup can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57929138958964/
Following on from last week and the destruction of their chopper, it's now time to ramp things up a bit and bring in the "bad guy". Possibly I've taken 'slow burn' to new levels with this, only introducing the plot arc bad guy in episode 128.... but it's also been a case of not showing the players things going on in the background if there's no way they could know about them. The bad guy has turned up, a vastly powerful mage that none of them have ever met before, and indicated that he wants Marius for some dark and nefarius purpose - leaving the players thoroughly confused. And hopefully thinking that this is a "bad thing" ™. Now of course they're stuck in the desert, transport blown up, unable to get their loot home, and with the big bad saying "I'm sending someone to collect you - you just wait there!" - and hopefully feeling that the situation is pretty shit at the moment, and that the GM is out to get them. At least I hope so - it's all part of the rollercoaster ride. There's plenty of notes from this week as there was lots of dialog between the players, and then the players and the NPC before we finished with the fight. ************************
|
|
|
|
|
Apr 19 2020, 01:58 PM
Post
#106
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
For anyone curious - here's the details of the bad guy:
Manuel Aganosta, Dwarf, Male, Aztlanner. Body 5, Quickness 6, Strength 5, Intelligence 7, Charisma 6, Willpower 8, Reaction 6, Initiative 6+1D6(+20 Astral), Essence 9 (Blood pact), Good Karma 12, Karma Pool 14. Power foci 5 (Blood diamond on iron necklace), Weapon foci 5 (Athame, blank smooth handle carved from black wood, red blooddrop gem in the end of the pomell) Manuel is a grade 10 intiate with Magic 16 (21 with Power foci), and has the metamagics of: Masking, Posessing, Shielding, Sacrifice, Improved Sacrifice, Divining, Centering (Blood splatters), Severing, Cleansing, Filtering He is able to summon a style of Blood spirit known as a "Ravener". The blood spirit appears in physical form as a cloud of blood-red mist or a blood-red humanoid with claws, wings and a hooked beak. The one he summoned for the last episode was a Force 6, which had the following stats: B7, Q8X3 S4 C6 W6 I6 R7, Init 17+1D6 / 27+1D6, CP10, Str(M) hits, Essence Drain, Fear, Guard, Noxious Breath, Compulsion, Fear Drain. Fear drain is a new power - the screams that occurred during the combat. When used - all creatures in an area equal to F X 100M have to resist 2L drain on turn one, followed by 2M, 3L,3M, 4L, 4M etc rising each combat round as the enveloping fear rises amongst its prey in response to magical attacks and despair. Every 10 boxes of "unsaved" fear by all creatures in the area will increase the force of the spirit by 1. I wanted to use a new power as both Jez (Aswon) and Lee (Marius) have been playing since early 2nd ed at least and know the lore and stuff like spirit powers pretty well - so giving them something uncertain is good to keep things fresh and new for them. It also means if they ever bump into a ravener amongst "pedestrians", then it could quickly start to use its power and become a horrible combat opponent that will be difficult to deal with as it feeds on their fear, rising up by several force points. If they can fight them in more remote areas, then it's likely to be a much easier fight. |
|
|
|
|
Apr 27 2020, 02:52 PM
Post
#107
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Smuggler session 129 is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57961909368964/
So, once more trying to usher the team onwards, and to leave the trashed chopper behind – it took them ages to pack up and I thought I was going to have to have the ambushers instead become an assault team – but thankfully in the end they decided to leave. Even better, they looked for easier routes, so it was easy enough to justify getting them off the direct route, and away from the ambush site, yet still close enough to see it and realise they were out of their league. And then, right at the end of the night, I got to drop the tilt wing in, in front of them - ready to whet their appetite. So next week we’ll try to crack on with the assault and see if they can get a new transport that’s a bit less thirsty than the chopper. And of course, having escaped his claws, Mr dick badguy will have his agents out hunting for them. Because why wouldn’t he? In terms of game progression, this should push them more towards smuggling smaller things, and give them some space constraints to work around – while at the same time giving them a great little craft to buzz around in. The better economy rating of the craft will lower the mahoosive costs of running they were trying to deal with on the MI-6. The reduced space will also cut back on the “mobile home” benefits of the MI-6 and keep them looking for locations to stop in, and allow them to build up more contacts and bases in their database – or at least I hope so. Here are the notes from the session: Date: Thursday 29/4/2060, Location: 31.26973, 23.20583 • Kai - waiting for the mage to come back - we murdered his spirit. • Aswon staying out of astral space • Marius - we haven't come up with a way to get out of the desert. Kai - get ready but don't look like we're evaccing • Tads checks on the scorpions, they are slightly stunned. • Marius - I defer to tads judgement on paracritters. Tads - really? Lets get out of here then. • Marius - discussion about the Indian version of the 4X4 • Discussion about warding the boxes, number on astral watch, keep Tads on watch while rest ward. • Group warding - down to 90mins for a F6 • Gus computer check - evaluate time for response, air 90mins to 2 hours, ground all day. Marius expects air. • Tads prepares for exfil and sterilise spell • Kai asks about chopper sensors - Marius, too much power, but we have the condor. • Tads - if they send a transport, how much desert can they cover? Marius - LAV, • UAZ has 32 CF. The scorpions take up 4, can overload by 25-33% with care. • Discussion about how to move the drones, can they be levitated, IWS=body 2, Doberman=body 2 • Hunter - we can do a sledge made from chopper fuselage • Do we travel day or night? Marius - daylight, for Shimazu. • Marius discussing robots vs drones, need to active control • Kai - make it look like we're staying, get as ready as possible. Tads - if not a satellite, how long would a drone take to get here? Marius - could be as fast as fighter. • Hunter over watch where Aswon was • Kai - we murdered the spirit, Tads, is that a personal insult, or a corp slap in the face? Tads, it felt like it was channelling from something alive somewhere else. Yeuch. • Magic background check - good rolls from team. Did they summon and burn a resource, no- already done. • Kai - if we think they're going to capture us anyway, should we just wait? • Marius - with that dead thing, if you summon a new spirit, will it be a normal one or all weird. Tad - hadn't thought of that, oohh. Might have to go elsewhere. • Kai - int check to think about bits in the repair shack back on the island they stopped at for fuel. Talks with Marius about getting spares - chopper is dead, drones are a bit damaged • First ward done, no changes, • Start on the second. Done, no problem. 11:30 am. Drones ready. Wipe nav information from chopper, and get data of previous locations • Warning from Ludmilla - "If you are in the desert, be warned, local assets report Strike team has landed and refuelled recently in eastern Libya, and are active." Shares with Hunter over private comms • Shares with Kai and rest of the team in the chopper. • Aswon and Shimazu get scorpions into the carriers - Shimazu close run thing • Team decision - take the sled and more gear, or faster and smaller. Aswon planning on being on the back. Tads asks if Hunters medicine will keep out of the fridge. • What will they send? One squad, two? 12-24? Nobody has idea of how much is in an Azzie squad. Break down the IWS and load up. Shimazu driving, Marius on drones, Hunter and Aswon strapped on the back. • Kai - tads, can you astral scout - they might eat me. Also, there's spell signature all over, they ask can she cleanse - I've tried, and it's fatigued me. • Marius - can they track me with that - Tads, only with a ritual. Marius warns Shimazu not to drive over 70 kph, or he will outpace the drones. Get Tads to summon a spirit to conceal their trail. • Take the path of least resistance. Aswon advises on best terrain to route over. Tads summons a F4 desert spirit with 5 successes. • Shimazu drive check 1rr2, spirit guard and conceal, conceal drone. • Marius spots the ambush team. Artillery+snipers+hmg setting in for a firing line, very narrow buggy • Kai - can we take them by surprise? Marius - what in this unarmoured jeep? Kai - is it coincidence or definitely for us. • Aswon merc background - setting up a perimeter, may have orders to be a tripwire, or be ready to advance. Aswon advises Kai about his thoughts - could be dug in for a while, or be readying to assault. • Marius spots the tracks, advises of that - Kai, we should steal their transport. Aswon and Marius agrees. • Drive on, detour a bit. Kai checks with Tads if she's stunned or ok - she's ok. • Discussion about using concealment spells, can Tads mask - yes, no... save it for later. • Spot the tilt wing, can we steal it? Marius - can the jeep fit in it? Test vs vehicle BR is not great - probably yes (wrong) • Tads - will it have a transponder thing? Discussion about getting the transponder disabled. • Kai asks Tads for an astral flyby - Tads, they might spot me, Kai - go around the long way, approach from a different direction. • Tads generally unwilling. They think about moving on. Tads coming from directly above - maybe.... reconsidering. She goes • Tads - scouts, back ramp is open, two Marius like people inside, • What - you mean Germans? • No - things like Marius had, doing things with checklists. They have a ward, ward is F1 or 2. Kai - is that broken then? Tads, no - just like we had on our chopper. • Team decide to nick it. • Tads - Azzies want a conversation with one of us. And they have bad spirits. But if we steal their thing - does that escalate things? Aswon - next time, be nicer. • Assess the weapons - they look Azzies, or at least Azzies supplied or affiliated. No unit patches or identifiers • Marius checks that there's no magic there. Tads - says no, nothing I saw • Marius - can we not kill the crew? Kai - no problem with that. Work out non-lethal attacks. We can return stolen goods in the future, we can't return dead crew. • Aswon - who speaks Spanish? Kai? No. Hunter - can you teach him some words? Hunter teaches a choice phrase "on your knees" • Working on assault plan - Marius, vehicle stealth check, can get to about 650m away by using hard terrain. Tads asks if the condor can fly someone in. • We might embarrass the mage, make him have less corporate power to chase us. • Kai - get close, invisible, storm the vehicle, capture the crew, remove transponder, steal and get away. • Tads - have we got a jammer? Have we got stun grenades? Condor - can't drop anyone on the roof. It's stealthy, but will get spotted if it gets too close. Marius also explains about sensor bubbles. |
|
|
|
|
May 3 2020, 09:36 PM
Post
#108
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Smuggler session 130 is now posted and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57986131098964/
The team did the assault on the tilt wing, and the dice gods favoured them strongly during the session. They snuck up without an issue, Tads cast the mother of all stunballs and got (with a re-roll to be fair) enough successes that the enemy could not feasibly get enough to resist it - even if they blew every bit of karma they had. So the capture went well, and they got their gear there - and discovered the little wrinkle of the fuselage being too narrow for a normal vehicle. When the spirits arrived, again the players lucked out with not only their initative rolls but also their attack rolls. So I just rolled with it and let them have an easy win. I hope it didn't come across to them as anti-climactic, but every now and then I think it's good to get a combat just go your way and let the team dominate the enemy. After all, they had the Aztechnology mage dominating them the previous week, flexing his magical skills at them, so it's only fair. So, now they are away, with the cargo, and have discovered they have a nicy shiny smuggler craft with all manner of cool gizmos. It's a lot more fuel efficient which will lower their costs and make more runs viable to them, but it also restricts them a little with space and makes it less viable as a flying winebago - so they'll need to find more smuggler stops and contacts around the place, so hopefully makes exposing plot a lot easier. And they're still very confused about why the bad guys want Marius, which is great. Here are the notes from the run - a couple of bits got moved around in the running order for narrative flow, and I think one bit removed, but otherwise it was pretty much on par this week.
|
|
|
|
|
May 10 2020, 06:56 PM
Post
#109
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Session 131 is written up and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58011153218964/
Starting off at the smuggler base in the med, the players eventually realised that taking their unregistered military tilt wing into a commercial airport was not wise. It seemed to take a bit of prodding for Lee to remember that Marius had mafia contacts in Sochi, which was actually closer to the direct route they needed to take to get back to Ludmillas, but they got there in the end. Once they had the plan worked out, it was a very smooth trip up to land at the Dam, hand over the goods and get their sweet 500K reward, and then get back to the ranch via the quarry, for some R&R. Finally, they have decided not to take any more work on, and have a bit of downtime – so the last part of the evening was arranging what everyone was going to do Shimazu has picked up psychometry from the university in Egypt, and also seen a plot thread (the ancient catacombs with books from the library of Alexandria in it) to be rolled out later on. Tads finally got a chance to learn her spells and get some enchanting done, making Shimazus sword into a F4 weapon foci and her own staff into a F1. The others all did some skill based training, racking up about 500+ hours of training time, and we’ve advanced the in game calendar a huge amount… in fact, in the 3.4 out of game years we’ve been playing, we’ve covered 150 days of IC time. At the end of the night, that went up to 264 – so I need to have a read through the timeline and make sure they’re aware of what has gone on – but we’re also inching closer to the Year of the Comet and fun times. As usual, here are the notes from the session – including what the characters originally planned to do during downtime, at least until we had a couple of 1:1 sessions to discuss their training: Date: Thursday 29/4/2060, Location: 37.33915, 26.60526 Mid afternoon
========================= Downtime calculations Aswon: 18 Karma available Talismongering 0>1 1gk (4 hours), Cooking 2>3 3gk (180 hours), Paracritters 2>3 3gk (180 hours), Biotech 2>3 4gk (112 hours), Heaevy weapons 0>1 1gk, 4 hours, 1>2 3gk (84 hours) Kai: 54 karma available - spending 19 Talismongering 1>2 (2/120), Pistol 4>5 (7/196), Archery 3>4 (6/168), Heavy weapons 0>2 (4, 88) Marius: 59 karma available Electronics BR to 5 (7 gk, 196 hours), Spanish 0>3, (6 gk, 300 hours) Hunter: 26 karma available - 19 spent Data havens 0>3 (4gk, 184 hours), Computers 4>5 (6gk, 168 hours), Etiquette 0>3, specialise Matrix eqiquette 3>4 (9gk, 200 hours) Tads: 66 Karma available - 32 spent Etiquette 0>3, Magical etiquette 3>4 (6/158), Initiate (18/4), Learn spells (8/48), Orichalcum (0,112), Bond foci (1/1), Create F1 weapon foci (1,60), Create F4 weapon foci (0,60) Shimazu 43 karma available - 21 sword - 17 spent Psychology 2>4 (7/96), Aura reading 2>4 (10,168), Psychometry Nadia: 25 karma available |
|
|
|
|
May 18 2020, 06:15 PM
Post
#110
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
The latest smuggler write-up, for session 132 can now be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58037265903964/
Due to birthday nonsense, we moved from our regular Tuesday night slot to a Monday, which meant fitting in under other commitments from one of the players, so we only had an hour to go – but lots of dialogue and lots of planning for what to do and getting last minute things. Once all the gear had been sorted, one of the players asked to speak, and then told the story of why Zeta-Imp-Chem was after his character, filling in a bit of backstory and explaining what he knew and how it might affect them. There was a bit of discussion on what to do about this, but no firm decision taken. I have a bunch of jobs to offer them on Tuesday, ranging from easy to hard with pay scales to match, to let them choose what to do, and I’m curious to see if they want to do some more smuggling runs and ignore the backstory, do runs to gear up and then tackle the backstory, or if they want to work out the “plot” before doing side quests. Here are the notes from this week – a little all over the place, but the conversation was flowing fast in some places…
|
|
|
|
|
May 24 2020, 03:43 PM
Post
#111
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Smuggler session 133 is now live and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58056547928964/
With all the downtime done, and the players ready to pick up to go on their next job, I gave them four different job offers, from four different contacts, to give them a variety of different paths to follow and to see who would favour what. Here’s the four job outlines:
A sliding scale of pay, different options for what would clearly be a demo/combat operation, an ambush that could well require wet-work, a smuggling run, or a chance to be the cavalry riding to the rescue and earn another medal. So what did they do of course? Instantly start plotting, trying to work out how to do all four… That led to the great question – do I go with that? I hadn’t initially put timescales on, as I didn’t want to write up too much detail without knowing which way they were leaning. I put a specific time on the ambush job – the team doing the courier work would be in Tehran in 3 days, not before, not after. Then added a bit of moral pressure to Tads with the picture of the dead Russian trooper from the doctor. I knew we’d only get so far during the session, so I didn’t have to worry too much beyond the first job, which based on the geography was always going to be the smuggling run – and the assumption they could get it done in a day. Unfortunately for them, the “twist” already put in for Job 3 was that they’re going to run into the Guerrilla infiltrator / spotter they ran into in Sinop – the lady that sold them the magical leeches. She was there to scope out the town ready for the strike squad to make their move on the power station – and needed to know what the players were up to in their big green army truck, so stuck her nose in. When they turn up at her camp with a load of munitions, after how the last job ended up, she’s very suspicious and thinks they’re government infiltrators and in need of a good interrogation. So – the team might end up on *very* short time once Kai has talked his way out of this situation, to make it to Tehran, giving them no time to plan, prepare or maybe even sleep. Excellent… <grin> As usual, here are the notes from the session:
|
|
|
|
|
May 31 2020, 04:34 PM
Post
#112
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
This weeks writeup is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58079436888964/
An uneventful journey to the target site – as it should be given the new vehicle they have. I gave them all a perception check to spot the defences, and they got the basics – but not the top end stuff. Down they went and it was all going so well, then it was time to drop the hammer. Fortunately, nobody decided to kick off a fight, and they were trying to negotiate their way through it. As they started getting recorded reading their word phrases, Tom (Shimazu) made the connection that this was to do with the road crash and the phone call to the police, which was very gratifying – as that happened *quite* some time ago (November 2018) Some good RP from Aswon (Jez) and Kai (Fozzy) and they managed to persuade their captors that they weren’t the secret police and got them back on side though – and then uncovered a little more about where the leeches came from. Which caused all kinds of discomfort when it was discovered where this was, and who the likely boss was. So – we’ve got that to look forward to this week! Here are the notes from the session: • Flying east, no problem on handling, ok on border crossing, call number, Patrick warns, • Kai - but conceal? Rest of team - NO! • Tads - will we need conceal on the way out? Out of services. Aswon/Kai - yes. T, Will resummon in the air • Hunter - choose a colour scheme. Tads - fish? No... pick a corp colour, Aswon - psych test, black ops or civilian, Shimazu psych test - bland courier company • Tads drops conceal, Marius does one circuit before landing • Spot the base, Marius 2 spots, everyone else max 1, • Aswon - spots the arachnid SAM, recounts details, possible poor maintenance • Team not being pinged, get in close • Kick the anthill, Kurds scatter, Kai - everyone on a gun, Shimazu with him, team tool up. • Aswon on side doors, Kai+Shimazu at back ramp, Hunter to cover, Tads in cover • Single person approach, stop and weight • Give password, goes as written • Marius 2nd perception check - still 2, out of engagement envelope for SAM • Aswon - fuel query? Kai - nah, sorted. • Coffee and sweets. 3rd test for Marius. Still only 2 successes • Reaction test for all. TN6. T1, H2, A1, S1, M2, K2 - Kurds get 3 • Screams - put hands in the air! • Kai - asks what is wrong. Shimazu complies, Hunter as well, Aswon and Marius in the vehicle, Tads neutral. • Kai - asks again, what is wrong • We have seen you before. • K- I don't remember seeing you before, or this place? • Tads - over comms, maybe Constantinople - Aswon, long way... • K - sure this is a mistake. I will come talk to you. • I will talk to you, but all people out of the vehicle. K - tell them Marius is wired in. So unplug. • K - blag, tell them the vehicle is polluted, the team has been inoculated, not safe for you. • Tads and Shimazu Assense... Hunter thinking the temple in Constantinople • Guy looks ready to shoot, both Tads and Shimazu think. • Marius - 3rd perception check, 7 successes, spots the hmgs and vehicle getting lased. • Kai - blag, aerial drones, high-ex munitions. Guy refuses to bow down - drone goes to high speed. • Kai "put the drones high, but out of range, and on standby" To guy - I thought we had a business deal here, or is this not satisfactory • Tads - will take time, but I can shape earth to crush the bunkers. • Spot Ceyda - flashbacks to Sinop - stopped the attack, Aswon smack the kid in the face with the door. • Babbles in Kurdish - so, out of the vehicle, Turkish spies! Shimazu in mandarin - kai, I can kill this guy before anything happens, so we sorta have a hostage. • Kai - pilot not out, but one lady go in. • Tads - Kai, do you want anything magically defending the craft? Aswon - that will kick things off if they notice. • Aswon, hide the spear, unplug from the gyromount. Tads check that Marius spirit on guard. • Team ushered towards the tent. Psychology test - Kurds very angry, LD check from Kai - they believe • do voice checks - Turkish spies! • K - definitely not • The speech • Aswon belly laugh "all this for one asshole" • Kai - we're independent traders, we blag, • Kai - negotiation 1 X 16, 1 X 11, buy 1 more, 3 in total. • Ceyda sprints to tilt-wing - show me the footage! Hunter and Marius check electronics. Rewind and replay • Kai - more negotiation - he and Marius recount the tales. • 2nd round of coffee, Kai tries to reassure that it's not personal, big him up in front of his troops • Ceyda - so, got your truck upgraded then? We still have it, special place in my heart - and slow for this job. And it's not quiet. • This thing - this is quiet. Yes it is. Are you available for more work. That depends on the timeframe, and you would have to talk to Kai. We have some work for the next few weeks. And he's the Mongol? Yes, he's the TL and negotiator. But I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for the right price. • Rep is everything. Why not come and have coffee - gives guarantee of safety. Marius - will follow you in, starts to lock everything down. • Goat kebabs. • Team make nice. Aswon goes to the kitchen, talks with the women, gets some sparring in with their knives • Rest of team get stuffed full of food. Aswon and Hunter get Kurdish • Shimazu - ask the leech seller what they are, the master, Mount Ararat. Can I meet the master? Team WTF? • Kai - does anyone need a lift to Mount Ararat |
|
|
|
|
Jun 8 2020, 10:10 PM
Post
#113
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Smuggler session 135 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58109285663964/
Having successfully completed job #1, they’re now moving on to job #2 – intercepting a data steal from another team. So, they needed to head to Iran, and down into the ruins of Tehran. I was hoping they were going to head back to the ranch to have a night there – so I can drop a plot point on Marius and reveal that Nadia is significantly pregnant. But they decided to camp out, and then go directly to Iran, so that will have to wait for the future. In the meantime, having now visited two PKK aligned facilities and being somewhat implicated in the botched attack at Sinope, they’ve come to the attention of Aden, who in an unusual move has decided to check them out personally. It’s been a while since he dined out, so he’ll either find useful information and get some new minions, or get some takeout. Not sure yet…. The new tilt-wing is working out nicely at making most border crossings fairly routine and safe for them, keeping them off the grid and flying around on the QT – now they need to work their smuggler contacts to start working on bases and locations for fuelling, expanding out their web of contacts. Using the map software at https://www.mapdevelopers.com/draw-circle-tool.php I’ve started to plot 750km radius circles from each of their fuel bases, so they can work out how many hops they need to make to get places, and where they need to try and get new contacts (and it helps me plan missions and new locations of course) The current map of their locations is: here Colour codes: Green = very friendly / direct control, Yellow = controlled by happy employer, Orange = controlled by 3rd party with friendly rep, Red = controlled by 3rd party with neutral rep And a nice cliff-hanger to end on – coming face to face with Aden. Marius refusing to bow, and nearly being eaten. Aden wondering if he should just eat Aswon first and take the spear. I’m wondering if any of them will mention mission #4 – learning that the team are considering a strike against Esprit Oil in Turkmenistan, them being controlled and owing allegiance to Lofwyr – might just swing his mood a little. If they don’t, I have a contingency plan involving the weird man from the mountain free spirit they found near here, to dig them out of trouble. As usual, these are the notes from the game session to compare with the writeup: • Getting on for 19:00, dusk/dark • Checking the map and fuel range - do we go to Batumi? Question from Hunter -dinner with Kulkachev • Marius - calling Michael David • Kai - checking smuggler routes - vineyard, potential fuel stop for drug smugglers • Hunter - check Data havens for details - PKK links, only 1 success, need good rep. • Get Commander Kawa with a really good charisma roll, gets personal recommendation and PKK password • Talk to the camp about staying the night, and do they want a lift? Yes, they can put the team up for the night, but no - they don't want to go near the mountain. • Check - Kurds are respectful of mountain, you get invited - team • Kai - planning to pitch tent and stay at camp overnight. Tads - wants to go back and head to Russia astrally. Tads not happy to stay unguarded, Shimazu agrees to watch. Tads planning journey no more than 3 hours, to go see Doctor, swap numbers and plan route, doctor responds to query "should be safe, we've not done anything", 1800km each way, 11km per turn • Aswon and Hunter run, scree slopes, kai gets history, Marius a good night’s sleep • Tads - heads up to Russia, meets the small horde of F4-5 spirits, some free with spirit energy, all having a coldness and evil core, bestial and primitive, hungry and self-centred. Some spirits spot her and chase, Tads contacts doctor, leaves VM to warn • Sunday morning 29/8/20 • Thanks the camp, head off. • Shimazu asks Ceyda for more leeches, gives number, offers to buy some. • Tads resummons spirits, 355 km, • Call the office at the vineyard, arrange to VTOL land in the yard and refuel. • NoE flying towards the vineyard over the highlands, Aswon spots some canon goats. • Get to vineyard, land ok, older guys with home made clothes, ask how the team serves the cause, import/export, oh ok. Kai explains they do deliveries - they • Hunter gets kai to ask if it's a one time code - no, as long as you're on our side it's good. • About 07:30 by the time they get there and get fuelled, discussion about what to do. • Kai - we do need to get a shift on with what you've found. • Tads suggests going there for a quick strike.. Marius, too much fuel, a lot of cost. Kai - yeah, Tehran, then up to Russia ASAP. • Working out routes to Tehran, coming in over the sea. • Tads suggests getting the fuel stop done first to give better options. Marius happy, less chance of heat on the smuggler base. • Check the maps, all ok. • Marius planning not to go back to the ranch, depending on what Nadia is doing. • Head to Tehran, get the job done • Asking spook for dossier, then head to Rashid, wait a day there. It is a day of downtime, but too far to go to Russia • Marius - could do with some maintenance on the bird. • Tads - kai, when we get to the base, we'll need a warded hanger - we can do that, but need the space • Kai - if we can get nasty rad ammo, does anyone object to using it? Aswon, that probably caused the problem, fire with fire • Marius - you put wards on the tilt wing yes? Plans for ramming. Aswon - very difficult, and risky • M - Could Tads do the mind link to give me astral vision? • Discussion about magical combat in Russia • Flying to the smuggler base while discussing, get dossier on "Unsubtle", start discussing. • Marius - can the team intercept the hand off team to get the data delivered to them? • Border out of TCL to the sea is fine, no spotting • Approaching Iranian border, stealth 9+sig 5, border gets a 13, not spotted. Do get spotted by a watcher, so the authorities are aware of an intruder • Tn 8 test for Marius to start, gets 2, notices bad weather, check weather report, winds should be from the north, • Tads checks to see if it could be spirit from the smuggler base, or the mountain • Winds increase, Marius spots, hunter spots clouds in the distance not moving fast • Tads spots control weather effect, Marius, spots increasing effect • Tads - could this be a delay action or be designed to make poor pilots crash • Marius gets direction about 25-28 degrees east of south, is this towards Aden? • Aswon - I think not, too subtle. Kai apologises to thin air. • Tads - is this a big a spell force? Aswon, no - but ritual casting he thinks. • Marius - two choices, fight or give in. Kai - fight, climb out of it. • Try, wind increases, do make the turn, but now 80kph, Kai spots the drake off the port wing, • Signals a fire bolt down to the mountain • Magic background - Kai thinks it's a ginger love child, Tads = 3 success, it's a drake • Hunter - aren’t they normally pets? Aswon - no, I wouldn't call them that. Treat with respect. • Tads tries to assense, no result - just a big mountain bird • Marius does fab landing on tight spot on the Simorgh mountain refuge • Getting out - Aswon asks do we want to go out in a hostile stance? kai - yeah. Shimazu - do you want to go out with a dragon hunting spear? Aswon memory check - some remembrance of dragon hunting. Asks Kai - kai confirms. • Spot Aden coming in, pretty confirmed on ID, he comes in to the group, levitates Aswon F12 - • Shimazu and Hunter jump to catch him, both jump, catch a leg each, still go up. • "That’s an interesting tactic, but it will make bowing before me very difficult" • Hunter and Shimazu drop and bow, Kai bows deeply, Shimazu to the floor. Aswon deactivates the spear puts it behind him. • Tads bowing, Marius - not showing respect. • +1 karma for Shimazu "gonna need a bigger jar".... • Marius, dragons check (8,1), buys 1 success. Decides to bow after all. |
|
|
|
|
Jun 15 2020, 06:58 AM
Post
#114
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Episode 136 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58129096838964/
This week turned into a bit of a mammoth, and left me quite drained. We – or rather I, tried something new. I added the “Craig” audio bot into our discord channel (https://craig.chat/home/), and after checking with all the players and explaining what it was for and what the audio was to be used for, they were all happy with it. In use, the audio bot was dead easy – start it running, it makes an announcement in the channel and then just sits there. At the end of the session, just tell it to stop. There’s a link the bot posts when it starts to record, and you put that in the browser to get to their servers – then you can choose to download either each track as a separate file (so you can work out what player A said while player B was talking over them) or with all the tracks down mixed into one file. Recording a 2 hour 19 minute session to a down mixed stereo file delivered in .M4A format came through at a very reasonable 118 MB. Normally, I make notes as we’re playing along, just spamming out bits in notepad, and trying not to worry about Spelling, Punctuation And Grammar. Also in the notepad are my plan for the evening, stats for the NPCs and any fights, effects, ongoing plots or events that are due. When all done for the night, I tidy up my SPAG afterwards to make it less bad and then save that. Once I’m ready to start on the write-up, I copy the text file in, add two page breaks then copy the text file again, including the stats and so forth – so if I ever look back I’ve got a record of what should have / might have happened, before the players got their mitts on my plots and broke them or ran off at a tangent. I then go through the notes, expanding out the lines of notes and using them as a memory aid to write the narrative of the game session. Most of the time the descriptions are hopefully like those given in game – but when I’ve under or oversold something in the game, I try to fix it a little in the write-up, and hope that helps smooth the story out for the players. However, listening back to the audio took me the same time again as the session – plus some “re wind and listen to that again” time. Overall, I think I spent at least 4 hours transcribing the audio from the file onto notepad. One of the players suggested several transcription services, that might be worth looking at – but I’m unsure of how it will cope with some of the dialects / accents of the players, the use of abbreviations, acronyms and game terms, and the general slack jawed lunacy we witter on about at the best of times. I think any transcript produced would have to be carefully vetted and checked, corrected and mangled – which might take as long to do as just a plain transcription. The notes for this weeks game were noticeably bigger. As an example – Session 134 had 790 words of notes, over 55 paragraphs. Session 135 was 1002 words over 62 paragraphs. This week in session 136 – with the audio transcript, I had 5190 words, over 135 paragraphs… So I captured a lot more detail from the story – and that led to a bigger write-up. This week the story was 13,133 words - beating my previous “high score” by 1.5K (from session 88 if you were curious – where they were planning an assassination) – that comes at a price of course. This week’s write-up took me 322 minutes to complete – nearly 5 and a half hours. So overall, it’s taken me 9 hours to do, instead of the more normal 4-5. I’m not sure I’ve written a “better” story episode this week, or just a longer one, so I don’t think this is something I will do again going forward. On reflection then - I think I'm going to go back to making notes inline, during the session. Nobody has ever mentioned it as a problem, and I'm not aware of a time where I've missed major points people have said or caused a plot goof. So, it might add a little to the narrative in extra details, but I don't think it's worth the time investment and effort - this week felt much more draining and challenging to write up than other "slow" weeks. But, it was an interesting experiment. I think doing an audio record might be good if we're ever down one player, as they can listen to the session while commuting, walking the dog, painting miniatures or whatever, and it might give them better context and feeling of inclusion than they would get from just the in game write-up. But certainly for me personally, I don't think it's good to include in my writing process. So – with the warning that this is *way* longer than usual, here are the notes from this weeks session behind the story: Date: Sunday 29/8/2060, Location: 35.95693, 52.08236 About 10:00 • In the eye of the storm, shielded from overheads, BGC 5 outside. • Tads tries to disbelieve illusion, Aswon held in mid air, howling winds, everyone else taken a knee or bowed • "Foolish mortal" in the head, • Aden - querying why the team are here, what are they up to in his domain. He knows they were in eastern turkey, and then in armenia. What were they doing, who are they working for? Testing the teams resolve and how talkative they are. • Kai - can I answer you back in my head? Aden - you can, but nobody else will understand • K - we're a bunch of shadowrun smugglers, on our way to do a thing, something pushed us here - presumably you. • I know why you're on the mountain, but why are you here in my domain • Error in navigation. Really? Just passing through. Marius - he said Iran - the whole country. • K - we deliver to places, if this is Iran, this is Iran. Aden - listen your your german friend, he seems to understands things, much as he dislikes what I am • K - he dislikes a lot of thing. Aden - no, he doesn't dislike what I am, but what I represent • Aden So - why were you in eastern turkey? K - delivering things. Aden - what things. • K - delivered some things purchased from another country, they are going to use them enterprisingly • Aden - so what were you doing in Armenia. Marius - refuelling. Kai stalling and then confirms. • Aden - drops head, shouts "don't press me" • Aswon - racking head, heard about Aden funding the PKK. "Ohhhh!" Marius - we're independents, we'll do anything for money except forced movement of people, massive environmental damage. • Tads thinking about what she knows - mostly tasty with ketchup • Aswon - tell him what we've just done • Marius - just dropped weapons to your Kurdish friends. Hunter - can catalogue them if you want • Aden - but because you were being paid, not because you wanted to • Tads - we didn't know who it was for, or where they were going, we didn't know the details • Aden - but you could have been taking stuff to the Turks to use agains the kurds • K - could have, but we didn't - the turks definitely don' t like us • Aswon - not the Iranians either • Aswon - do you think he knows the old man? He might vouch for us? • Kai - which old man? Aswon with exhasperation, the guy with the water • Aden shakes the head, breaths out a proto flame, sulpher cloud, "I grow tired of talking with the...7 of you?" • Kai confused, thinks. Hunter - chemical analysis. Tads thinks "when did he last clean his teeth anyway. • K - do we have leeches? Shimazu - no, • Kai - 7? out loud • Aden flicks Tads down the mountain, she makes WP test as she falls and manages to cast levitate - but stays where she ended up. Aden snorts, turns away from Tads • Aden - whats the deal here then? • Marius starts to talk - no not you. Person at the end there... team look, old man with brush. Team smile/wave/greet. Aswon worries. Others relieved. • Old man, sobers, takes a knee, bows to Aden "My lord, I apologise for the intrusion, hope no offence." Aden - oh get up old man. • These are ...interesting people. Most interesting. Useful in the future. Can you let them go about their business. Perhaps ask them about their employment and see if it's intriguing. • Aswon - tell a good story Kai. • K - came together by accident, travelled a lot, have a truck and this tilt wing, happy to be employed by a dragon. • Aden looks, "I hear nothing intriguing, these are like merchants willing to sell their time and services." • Aswon - lowers and shows deactivated spear "this isn't intresting"? Aden - oh that is, and you're not leaving here with it.... • Kai raises eyebrow at Aden. Aden - ahh, a little spirit finally. Aswon - I had to fight a demon from the netherworld for this! • SILENCE! Would you do so again? Chorus of yesses, including Aswon. K - not afraid of getting our hands dirty. • Old man - nudge Marius in the ribs, got any other jobs? Just saying! • Marius, I was telling, but I got cut off! Kai - doesn't get it, talks about jobs in general • Tads - the one near Kum Dag? • Aden - and what are you doing in turkmenistan? Kai - we don't know yet, friend we've done small jobs for, Marius says "Maersk" Int check - they got rid of Dekita. Leaving Esprit - owned by SK. ***21:27*** • Aden sits back - ok, that is intringuing. Harumph. You may leave whenever you want, but without the spear • Kai - why in particular, is it yours, is it dangerous to someone you like? • Aden - *pause* what it represents • Aswon - what it represents is an ability to fight evil. Tads, big nasty corrupt evil that crawls up from under the ground. Aswon - an ability that without it I would not have. We rescued it from an ancient temple, defeated a horror, dropped a mountain on it, • Kai - oh yeah, we did... • Aswon there's something alive living inside it, something I don't know enough about yet.What will it take for me to keep it. • Hum? The price is quite high, are you sure you want to enter negotiations for that? • Well, I haven't heard what it is? It depends what the starting offer is - whether I walk out of here with my spear, or end up down your gullet without it. • Kai - coould it be put to good use, rather than sitting here unused with you. And could that putting to to good use, be of use to you? • Aswon - I'm bonded to it, it protects me, I protect it. So what's your offer? • I will allow you to keep it if you go back to the temple and deal with the horror, because if it's not slain, it needs to be slain, it may have been slowed down by you collapsing tunnels or dropping mountains or whatever you have done - it may have been buried, but it will be working a way out, evil always does. • Aswon - well I'll need help, I've got no way of moving a mountain • Tads - and what advice do you have on slaying these creatures? • Aswon - the way this old man is grinning at me tells me that you are actually a fairly resourceful bunch, otherwise he wouldn't be bothered with you, so I'm sure you'll find a way - so if you give me your *word*, that you'll go back and deal, you may keep it - but you should feed it and look after it. • Kai - we ok on this? Kai agrees. Oh yes. Aswon - then I give my word. *declared deed* • Marius - so are we going back to that hole in the ground? • Kai - oh yes • Aden - when you have dealt with esprit, you can return here, and we will talk on the history of that spear and what it means • Kai - ahh, that answered my next question • Tads - so do we have to come back before we go deal with the horror, or not until after? • Aswon - no, he's saying after esprit. Tads - just checking. • Aden - you should learn more before heading back to wherever - oh, I see up, there. *telepathy* • Kai - thinks of donkey porn • Aden flicks Kai off the mountain. Tads catches with a levitate after a bounce or two. Aden yawns and displays his fangs - return when you are done with esprit and we will talk. But for now - GO • Marius - leaves immediately to start the engines, chuntering as he does. Followed by Hunter • Kai - bows and thanks Aden, looks to old man - "a word...over here" • Aswon - asks to be let down using word for "teacher" Lowered, takes a knee, then back in the chopper. • Sweeper sweeps because of image "yep, you wanted a word?" Tads levitates both backup • "Really? were you with us all the time?" "No, I just got here. Good job too - he was going to eat you." "I'm not sure that wasn't the better option!" "Well, it absolutely was, otherwise I'd have to find some more people to help me." "ahh. So. Now we've established that it's your fault... how exactly did you do the air thing" "Oh I didn't do that. By the way, that favour I was going to ask you about. Keep next november and december free. Check date - 29th August 2060, keep 2061 end free. Team make notes in diaries. • Kai waits to be put down, thanks sweeper for his intervention. • Perception tests from team: now that dragon has gone - 100m eye of the storm, goes to BGC 5+, lid of cloud over the top - weather starts to dissipate. Now the magic has gone, the weather starts to turn to shit, as all the energy is released • Tads nods in the direction of the dragon as it vanishes around the mountain with respect • Marius in a strop, threatens to leave people behind. Hunter - ask the old man if he wants to come. Marius - no passengers! • Old man "well I'm sure I'll see you around, take care of each other, see you next november if I don't see you before. Good luck!" Sweeps off around the mountain. • Back to Rashids, only about 10km away - Aden *has* to know this place is on his front door. Marius - right - cross this place off the list! Not coming back • Tads - 2nd to last time - we have to come back and see him again. Aswon - well TBF, only I have to come back and see him again. Tads - and you think I'm letting you do that on your own? Aswon - well, I'd rather you didn't get eaten, for complaining about his breath. Hunter - we can just fly to his home, we know where he lives... Marius - yeah, fuck that off. Aswon, you can drop us on the ridge, we'll walk. Like a pilgramige. He'll like that. • Get to Rashids, spot the netting, sensors trying to lock them up. Turn off the ED, they get a lock, Rashid calls Kai, are you near us? Cammo net lifting on pulley block. Strains as it gets bigger than a truck - still not big enough to get in, too small for the tiltwing. Marius unhappy with risk, Kai calls Rashid - very heavy, can you come and help. Marius has to do the tail ramp hover. Hunter and Shimazu go to help, Rashid and Javad struggling, easy to help, tilt wing in to land ok. Lower the rope and sealed it up. • Area developed some more, small cabins and structures that could fit on a truck, bunded fuel tanks, more supplies, rustic to say the least, Rashid greets. Narsin is at back of area, covered up and doing some work, gives a wave. • Tads waves back with Aswon, then she looks for spirits - spots a F3 earth spirit watching the team. • Rashid - we've managed to get all the fuel, only have a hand pump, you're not in a rush are you? "If that's what you've got, fair enough, how long", It depends on how tired you get. Marius, good job we don't need a full tank! • Tads - are we planning to be here overnight? • Marius - we were, so we can look into planning. Check if they can make the pump automated - upside down drones and such like, work out best to do it by hand. Tads checks if the drone needs levitating. Hunter works out pulley system for cammo netting. Rashid has plenty of climbing equipment. Hunter goes to help with that. • Kai - do you need anything? Rashid - more customers, some ground crews using passes, but not really many air vehicles, surprising, would have thought more. Kai, what's your max capacity, 3 chopper/tiltwings and some smaller stuff. Hunter offers to post on shadowlands. • Tads - do that after we leave, so we don't get blocked in. Kai gets details of what supplies they have / can get. "You've done us good, we'll try and help you out, post to shadowland, we're put you in touch with a base up north, let you team up with them." Rashid - thankful, yes please. • Narsin comes to find Tads, hug, leads by the hand "I have many plants I've gathered, come and see", When you say many, I don't know how much space we have, this is smaller than the last vehicle we had, takes Tads to the trestle tables, about 300kg of raw herbal materials, interesting snow drops and rare mountain plants. Tads examines, sees if she is interested in learning talismongering. Narsin very confused. Hunter suggests "refining", Tads tries to explainin how it works • Kai - how does shadowland work, more posts = more rep. Hunter, yes, to a certain extent - but also the more information, the more diversity. If they're a smuggler stop, they'll get some people, if they have magical materials they'll get a very different crowd coming in. • Tads - realises she has concepts that aren't shared, no non-nenet words. Tads asks if she can put up a mind-link. Narsin - afraid, scared, spirit comes to protect. Tads tries to explain that it won't hurt. Perception check - Narsin too afraid. Tads tries to explain value of refining. Narsin is instinctive casting, no training, no common elements. Could show her - could do demonstrations, everything she has learnt empirically. • Assess the smuggler base - stuff that uses equipment / skills from the ski lodge, done well. Other stuff not so much. Marius chuntering and doing maintenance on the bird. Kai asks Marius to check their equipment, make sure its up to spec before they recommend on shadowland. • Poles, cammo netting, loos - all fine. Pulley systems for lifting stuff - not so good. Marius checks and makes recommendations for cheap upgrades, winches from trucks for lifting the netting for instance. Lots of diesel tankage, probably from courier firms / truck yards - not any facilities for Avgas except the new stuff, limited bunkerage. Kai checks for expansion potential - plenty of room. Hunter checks rocks - 22 on geology, limestone over granite - but the nearby mountain is a volcano, doesn't seem active at the moment, but could be. Site covers about 8 hectares, netting pinned to edges of cliffs, valley floor, slopes have opportunities for terracing or digging in. • Geography check - Karaj for equipment, less than 1 day travel, Tehran black markets, border to the north is reasonably soft, once out over the caspian, reasonable options. Possible route down to the gulf, or across to pakistan. Good potential, if they get some more funding. Kai tells Rashid to get lists of what he wants, so the team can help them get the base up and running to help them out - if he covers the fuel. Rashid reveals they are poor, just covering the costs. Willing and interested, just can't afford to do anything and is still a little naive. Hunter - would shadowland cut them some slack and help? Some would, some wouldn't - perhaps get with Shimazu to do a psyc test to work the report right. Area is seismically stable. Hunter reports to Kai comparing to the quarry, access tunnels. • Marius doing the bird maintenance, with Hunter- non magical stuff. Magical members doing talismongering. • Tads discusses going north, batting some spirits in russia - reduce the odds. Rest of team - warns them they will be coming, tips them off to magical intervention, risk on the job but mostly warns them the team coming. Tads warns about stuff being on the pad when the bird drops - metaplanar shortcut. • Message waiting for team - hook in to the sat phone or base comms, message from spook, get in touch for more information. Aswon gives her a call, greetings, I've got more information for you, can I put you on speaker, is it your team? Yes, then sure, Hi, I'm spook. Intros, they call me Tadibya. Consternation from team. Hunter, Tads is fine. Kai - we understand you have more info. Spook - sounds like you need to chat amongst your team, but I'll tell you this so you have something to discuss afterwards. Aswon looks uncomfortable. Spook - this is tenuous aswon, don't take it as 100% - not confirmed. It sounds like "unsubtle" are couriering the data to someone called "Falcon", powerful mage, good rep, courier work only, small compact cargo only, but across hard borders • Aswon - what is the tenous bit - Spook, that they are meeting Falcon. Reports that they're closing on the area, have turned down other jobs because they're allready busy. 2+2=4, digging on shadowland, powerful mage, travel shapeshifted, use spirits to travel with them and boost speed. don't know if that will affect your plans. Don't have a rep for combat, but sure they can look after themselves - but if they get the goods and get going, will be hard to catch. Otherwise have been doing some more digging, team leader for modulo - voice box replacement, throat ripped out. Heavily cybered. Not sure if you can neogotiate / intimidate them. • Kai asks for vehicle details, spook - Saab Wolvering, mid tier APC, also there is a smuggler market taking place in the city, don't have any details as it's not my area - but it's what I'd use for cover, hide in plain sight amongst the shadow scene. Kai - you think the hand off would be there. Spook, yes, if I was sorting it, that's how I'd do it, suspicious, lots of firepower to defend it. Kai - when is this? Spook - Market starting at 21:00 tomorrow night, not much detail beyond that. Aswon - is it announced, like an hour before opening. How do these things work. • Spook - well the ones in hong kong move around each time, stay ahead of the authorities and mega corps, someone in the scene will be running it, sub-board on shadowland, invite only, SIG, but not my area, don't know the local scene. Kai - we can do some digging, just forward it on to us. • Spook - markets in hong kong work like this, trucks arrive first, setup, some spirits, markets run for about 4 hours, might not be on time, probably run to early morning, then move out before organised responses. Info dealers, arms smugglers, slavers - anything sold off the back of a wagon. Will be suspicious and careful based on rep, local broker would be helpful. • Tads - do we think Rashid will be interested in the market. • Kai - calls Anita in Tehran, she answers after 2 rings, hi it's kai, long time no speak thought we would give you a call as we're in the area. When you say area, do you mean city? Or the country? • Country at the moment, but thinking about coming to the city for some business. So thought we'd give you a shout and see if you can point us in the right direction for some things, and see if you have anything you need taking out while we're here? • Right, ok, strange timing. I'm actually meeting with some people tomorrow, and I've got some stuff to sell them, but I might also be buying some things. Are you still...moving stuff? Kai - we certainly are! (Aswon - small things. - Tads and not far as we have other jobs) K - ignore the background noise, its just people mumbling at me. • Sure then, if you come in we can have a chat, have some drinks. • The thing tomorrow - it's not anything to do with trading is it? There might be a small number of stalls set out with various wares on display. That might be the thing we're interested in. Is this a secure line, or can I call you back on a different number? • *considering pause* Remember the number of the cafe we met at when you got me that ming vase - I'll set my encryption to that number and call you back in a minute. Call back, warbles, ahh, that's better, but lets keep it short and non specific just in case. • Yes, we're interested in the market that's running tomorrow night, yes, that's the market we're planning on going to. Can we tag along - not after goods, but meeting people and contacts. Yeah sure, I can take you along and vouch for you. Is there anything - after that we're flying off fairly quickly as we have another job, but if you have anything that needs taking that we can move for you. • I don't have anything at the moment, but I might have some work coming up, it depends how business is on the night. She brings up a map of Tehran - this is out of date, no survey for some time. Let me show you some notes and beautiful landmarks. Appraise the area around the tower - clear sightlines, good access, good egress, plenty of places to escape too, railyard nearby, plenty of road routes, room to land air vehicles, room for the stall and a backup group. Surveillance would be difficult in a souk style environment, crowded and jumbled. 4 main highways might be choke points as they are more likely to be open compared to side streets • What time do you want to meet? ARe you coming to the market and staying? Yes, we were thinking of it, for the most part yes. Aswon - what the whole night? Thought we were just looking around • If you head down to the city for 6, 7 latest - will take a while to get there, difficult moving around the city, checkpoints. You have to take precautions moving around. • Kai - what if you came in alternative transport - flying? Where could we land? • Landing there is not going to be an issue, landing near me would be. But I can get to somewhere if you want to pick me up. Scrolls map to park. I like the water, if I was going to meet you, it'd be near some water. Pans to other locations, shows other areas for security reasons. • So right, see you tomorrow night about 6 ish, Indeed, and then we can go shopping. Bye bye • Tads - so does she know that she might have to make her own way home from that? Kai (offhand) nah, I'll explain that to her later. Tads - you've not taken many girls out have you kai? • Aswon - thought on Falcon, Spook reffered to them as "they" - not sure on details, even sex. Difficult to identify them. Could we put watchers up, quite high - look for large birds flying *near* - they're not going to land in the market, but they might land nearby. Fast courier, very cautious, if they notice us watching them - they might break off and abort the job. Then we get Tads to do a physical mask. Falcon won't have the cash, they're just the courier. • Kai - well we've got two sets of people, Unsubtle - who are... unsubtle • Aswon - I'd rather not get in a fight with them, and I don't think you're going to convince them to hand it over - there's a contract involved, and they strike me as that kind of team • Kai - best surveillance for you marius - drones up over the street? Marius - yeah, look for the APC, they're unsubtle... • K - How much of the map could you cover do you thing? M, given that we know the vehicle quite high up, as we're looking for one specific type of vehicle so it's an easier spot. I don't want to get into a fight with these guys at the market • K - Hang on - too far ahead. Can you cover the whole park - main streets only, side streets only. M- higher it is, the worst resolution, makes it less likely to spot. Will get details of the vehicle and study the roads and the layout. • K - additionally, how much will the drone be foxed by trid phantasm etc. M - entirely, vehicle sensors are fooled by illusions really easily • Bodyguard and merc backgrounds for Shimazu / Aswon - will put up security from the organisers drones+spirits to provide base security and stop other peoples defences bumping into each other, limit weapons to pistols or smaller, no spirits in attendance. Surveillance would need to be outside that bubble. • Aswon - concerned about falcon - they're a specialist, if they get their hands on this thing, they're gone - just gone. • K - that's why we need to get eyes on the unsubtle team as they come in - follow them, as they're going to be easier to track than a single person. • Aswon - assuming we spot the apc on the way in then, what's the plan. Because we're going in with your mate, we can't kick off a firefight. Kai - stay out of things initially, unless we can just get it and go. I'm worried though that there's a code phrase or password for Falcon, or encrypted chip or something like that. • M - thinking about that - we should get falcon, but after the exchange. Aswon - phew. Hunter - that's a tight window. Remember back to Sweeden job - pickup of bioware freezers, taking photos to prove handover of goods to next in chain. • K - so if falcon gets the goods, do we think they're change shape immediately, grab the stuff and head away, or would they get to a safe place... • Aswon - if they tooks the goods in the middle of the market, I'm pretty certain they'd get to somewhere concealed and out of the way before changing. They have a rep for becoming a big bird and stuff with spirits, which means very few people will have seen it happen. K - yep - that's our window I think. • M - and we already suspect that their spirits won't be able to get in the security bubble, so they have to leave the market entirely. Aswon - yeah, so that's why I want outside the bubble covered. They are a powerful mage, they might have spirits waiting for them when they get there. I'd rather not have to kill them actually. M - me too. Might be a mage, might be a shapeshifter. I see window as after receiving the data but on the way to their safe place outside the market. Have to take them non-lethally, and steal the data. • K - deal with mage or spirits first, Aswon - spirits first, but knock the mage out. K - best way? Aswon - tasers, rocks. M - multiple simultaneous taser shocks and a drug. Not magic - they will likely shrug that. Aswon - yeah, we want tads protecting us. M - so I'm thinking, were in the in the market, susses out falcon and the handover, converge, multi- taser, scamble their system, knock out drug, get the data and leave with the mage alive - then it's just business. • Aswon - could we get some hyper at the market perhaps? That would do the job. Tads - potential for it to get messier, I have mind probe and alter mamemory once they are down. • Aswon - prefer not to leave the mage on the street where some ghoul or devil rat will eat them either. • Tads - could we get details of whoever is running security and alert them to falcons location after? Aswon - skeptical, we can try. • K - narrow window, but I think we can do this. Aswon - just need them to break LOS. Marius - they're a pro, but even a pro can't by hyper vigilant all the while, once the meet is done, the most dangerous bit, they'll probably relax a bit, will be doing a routine, • K - additional distractions - discussion of explosions, stuff in the sky, trying to distract most people in the area. Aswon - would have to be big, expensive - would need setup and prep, chance for things to go wrong, don't know which way we need them to look, there are probably random gunfine and explosions anyway around the city • Hunter - tads, couldn't you do a trid phantasm of a certain dragon - that you've been studying recently? • Tads - I could, but 2 downsides to that? Aswon - pah, only 2? Hunter - spell signature? Tads - ok, 3 downsides. My trid phantasm isn't as big as the dragon, Hunter - oh, fair enough never mind. Tads - but also, in case this comes up again - I don't want them to find out we're taking the piss. • Aswon - and that probably - given the location - turns *everyone* against you. They probably have mages around, and they will look for the source. • Marius - as someone who used to do some espionage stuff - converge, lightning strike, make them invisible , take them to the chopper which is inside the market. Aswon - ooh, active spell inside the market? Marius - ahh, right, ok - or just carry them, like they're drunk.Tads - stick em in a burka. Marius - good plan. Hunter - or roll em up in a carpet. • Kai if we got the data into the chopper, could the mage and their spirits find the data - could they get through the wards. Aswon - would have to break through the wards - if they are powerful enough, they could do. K - describes doing the mugging but then not fleeing, playing the psychology game. Hunter - depends on the head start and when they wake up. Kai - counter intuitive to stay right at the scene of the mugging. Tads - shapeshifter? Might be able to track by smell? Otherwise, spirits might have issues, if we change clothes that might help. But they can't ritual track us unless they're really weird. • Aswon - we have limited flight radius, a powerful mage might be able to track us fast enough - but it's a risk, because they don't know what our details are. But locals will probably notice us leaving as we're new, districtive vehicle. Tads - need to check for tracking device on the item. Aswon - doable, but we need to be very careful about moving around the market to make sure we aren't spotted by their contacts. But otherwise, yeah, stay and browse to throw off the trail. |
|
|
|
|
Jun 21 2020, 07:42 PM
Post
#115
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
This week’s write-up is “back to normal” and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58148360563964/
9915 words written 269 minutes editing time 36.86 wpm Pushing on towards the meetup at the black market, trying to intercept the data transfer from team “Unsubtle” to the mysterious “Falcon”. Before they get there though, they’ve got to pick up their local contact, who has just been and poked a whole lair of ghouls, got them good and mad and who are now chasing her through the park. We were getting close to 21:20 by the time the team hit the park and spotted the ghouls, and I didn’t want to rush through the combat – so that will kick off the action next week. It’s not a serious fight (though they don’t know that) and with three MMGs on recoil door mounts, they should decimate the ghouls – the low force spirits will get a walloping from Tads, and then they can drop down and save their contact. Hopefully it will be a nice, easy fight and give the team a bit of a pep up and a feeling of victory through overwhelming firepower. Once they’re on that high, we can head to the market, and due to the security strip them down to sidearms only, and try to emphasise the dark, shady nature of the event and the risk from being turned upon. It remains to be seen if they will spot either Falcon or Unsubtle in their inbound travels, or just how they’re going to deal with them. I have a game plan for the handover, with time slots – and if luck doesn’t go their way (the players) there’s a good chance they’ll fail the mission, and have to deal with the consequences. *shrug*. I don’t want to fudge it, and they need to know that they can, and will fail missions – hopefully it will make the successes feel more rewarding. As usual, here are the notes from the session: 1. Date: Sunday 29/8/2060, Location: 36.02763, 52.01816 2. Early evening 3. Marius, ask Hunter to check on shadowland for description on Falcon - Data Havens + Crim orgs Asia + Smuggling routes 4. Team discussion - fastest drone to pursue if Falcon gets away - work out that they have nothing fast / agile enough to cast 5. Hunter searching for Falcon, pro - large human/ork, small troll. Bland, disguises, never same costume twice 6. Thinking about condor / albatross - Aswon has some insights, like vulture, ungainly but fast, good magic background check - spirit movement they could go as fast as the tilt wing 7. Marius restates not wanting to kill. Tads worried about magic loss. Aswon thinks about shapeshifter vs mage with shape change. 8. Kai and Aswon discussing tactics for intercepting, Marius needs to be in the pilot seat to efficiently use the condor and be safe, slaving output to Hunters deck. 9. Marius thinks falcon will leave immediately, might tip them off as to the identity. 10. Kai - watch for that, team spread out, take feed from Marius looking for them, then converge/shadow 11. Aswon - mix of male and female? Yes - shape change then 12. Marius - or a mix of people or an organisation 13. Hunter worried about being recognised in the market for the fight video, wants to stay in the tilt wing. Rest - just change clothes and cover your face. 14. Check hunter appearance - can he be disguised, yes, 15. Tads - if they're likely to be a mage so not worth stun balling, is it better to physical mask Hunter? 16. Marius - might piss off the host security. Stick with tasers, most effective weapons 17. Aswon - wants to use hyper still 18. Kai - not unusual to hide ID at a meet like this 19. Tads - we're distinctive - Aswon is a known accomplice, might not matter if Hunter is made, if the rest of us are spotted. 20. Shimazu - depends what the corporation has released out to the public. 21. Get look at the location, rough sizes of the 3 rings, plan to split team in cardinal directions. 22. Talk about doing recon over the target, condor vs Dalmatian, stealth vs speed, 23. Looking for more data - Marius volunteers Mossad contact, Aswon - not keen. Marius - what's the issue with Mossad? 24. Tads - what if they hand over to multiple people? Aswon, will have to adapt. 25. Tads - what stops us flying to the location tomorrow morning and just parking there? Aswon, will be very noticeable, ballsy, 26. Marius - not wanting to take the tilt wing into the market itself. If he's operating drones, and they have white noise or surveillance, it will mess them up. 27. Tads - are we taking falcon somewhere specific? After we nobble them? Aswon - depends. 28. Kai - another avenue, find unsubtle and hit them first. Any ideas on doing that? 29. Tads - how far / fast can their vehicle go? Can we track it via drones and go "ask" them for the data. Strike them first thing in the morning and get them off-guard. Aswon and Marius - would go noisy, very fast. 30. Common sense - Marius gets 3 successes, check with Rashid, they have had ground crews through from Tehran 31. Kai talks to Rashid - vague description, inner area clear, outer shanty town. 32. Tads astral scout - clear edge to the shanty town, talk to team on return, Kai confirms deliberate by the organisers 33. Tads asks what the drop off point is - team unsure, probably electronic delivery. 34. Marius - plan then is over the mountains to the sea, and north 35. Overnight sleep, let hunter finish search 36. Monday 30th - runs, breakfast, make oats, pump hunter for information on surveillance 37. Hunter and Shimazu, psych test, post for shadowland, share with Rashid, he has been planning with Javad overnight. 38. Tads - are we abandoning the idea to track unsubtle? Marius - no, just want to get closer and do recon 39. Take spare fuel from tank with them, heading to Chitgar lake, planning to refuel there so they are topped off. 12km then from the tower. 40. Landing at the lack, sludge, BGC=2, ruined and burnt out shopping centre, crashed vehicles, meteor strike + firestorm in the area to the east, land about 10:00 41. Get the condor out and up, programmed for the bird types or the Saab 42. Damage to blocks, broken highways, subsidence, main highways clear at least half the lanes, shanty towns and souks to the right 43. Tads - local guide. Aswon - maybe a city spirit. Maybe they go in three twists and then change 44. Area to the left - railyard still open a bit? Otherwise firestorm, sewer bursts, toxic poo, gas main fires 45. Marius - can we rule out areas in there then? 46. Tads searches magically, finds some good and bad spots 47. Spot the markets being set out, power sources, heat spots under the roads sometimes, nothing unusual, 48. Marius does a survey of the area to use the time. 49. Tads suggests going to area to people marking the area out to mind probe. Aswon thinks too risky 50. Marius planning to land at the marketplace, but on the edge. 51. Survey for the day - spot 3-4 early teams coming in, then spot the security barrier going up. 52. Talking about kit going in - melee weapons probably fine. Marius suggests not the magic spear - Aswon, nah, Shimazus sword - it was from an Iranian museum! 53. Anahita -calls, come quick under attack 54. Open doors, Hunter on rear door, Aswon starboard, Kai on port. Tads on magic, Shimazu in the centre of the side doors, watching Marius |
|
|
|
|
Jun 28 2020, 08:35 AM
Post
#116
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Hello everyone! Another week of lockdown done, and the world hasn’t ended yet, which is mostly good news. As usual, the write-up has been published, and can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58167758693964/
They expected that we’d start the session with everyone’s favourite words of course – “roll for initiative”. Except we didn’t. Knowing what was to come, I worked on a modified initiative system, which I use when we’re in a ‘combat-ish’ kind of scene. Pretty much, it was work around the table, giving everyone a chance to do something taking normal actions, but giving a bit of leeway to characters with higher initiative scores to do “a bit more”. It strikes a reasonable compromise to keep everyone active and involved in the game, without penalising the players with higher init scores too much, or having to deal with dead actions (for instance, Marius with his VCR rig is likely to be on 2-3 actions per turn – but once he’s made his handling check, what else could he really do? Not a lot, maybe some sensor tests, but most stuff was spotted. So he’d end up not doing much, and feeling like he was “wasting” actions). As the team entered the park, I shared my screen and a basic map of the park snipped from Google Maps, and overlaid with a graphic representing the tilt-wing, in Microsoft PowerPoint. Then there were a bunch of small shapes placed on the screen, representing the ghouls and spirits that were pursuing the NPC. Only the first four ghouls and 2 spirits were visible to start off with, with the next one of each off to the side of the screen. What they didn’t know was that there were a stack of counters, in order, all tiled in the same spot. So, I could grab a new enemy and drag it off my “ready” pile and onto the map as they were spotted or appeared, and the team didn’t know how many more potential enemies there were. PowerPoint might not be as slick as Roll20, or Foundry VTT or any one of a bunch of other tools – but it has the advantage of being free (for me anyway, there’s some benefits to working in IT), accessible and easy to use, and it supports a bunch of nice features that I can make use of. For instance, as enemies get hit, I quickly select them then use one of the preset themes, turning them from green, to yellow to red (for light, moderate and serious wounds) as they take damage. With the ghouls being stuck on the floor, and only low force spirits to begin with, the players were able to act with relative impunity, and got to have a bit of a turkey shoot – and more importantly from my point of view got to experience the firing arcs from the chopper and how they worked, and also got to gauge the effectiveness of the on-board weapons. Once the NPC was on-board, the rest of the ghouls were deployed (causing some consternation amongst the players as they saw the numbers, followed by relief when they realised they were out of reach), and some bigger spirits, who started to attack. This gave Shimazu some bodyguard action in the chopper and a chance to do his slice and dice routine, and also for Tads to get her banishing action on. Unfortunately, she rolled really badly, and the spirit did well – leading to some rerolls being burnt and karma spent to buy successes! Finally, it wise time to send them on the rollercoaster, and the dire-octopus beast revealed itself and started to use its accident power on the tilt-wing, bringing it down. Marius made some superb handling rolls that justified a nice slow descent and plenty of time for the players to realise that the large pack of ghouls was now promoted to a major problem again, and a considerable threat. Aswon very much surprised me with his “death from above” attack, but he threw some re-rolls at his tests, centred, made his athletics roll and then nuked his actual attack, leading to a glorious one strike, one kill combat. That killed the accident power, allowing them to make good their escape – not that it was needed by then after they unloaded IPE offensive grenades and machine gun fire into the badguys. The idea was to try and give the players a bunch of highs and lows, taking them from feeling pretty much immune to damage, to worried about being overwhelmed with creatures where one scratch was enough to ruin your day, and then back again – it seemed to work ok, and they certainly were glad to get away from the park. I also made secret tests for Shimazu and Kai, to reveal the “duplicity” of Anahita, and see if they could spot her odd reaction. When one of the rolls passed, I whispered the following to the player directly, so none of the rest of the team knew what was going on: "As you examine Anahita, you notice something a bit suspicious. Her reactions seem incongruous, her surprise a little fake. Her fear and relief though, seem very genuine, and she clearly felt that she was at risk during the fight." Anahita *knew* there were ghouls in the park, and also that a small bunch of kids were hiding nearby. She didn’t have the firepower or skills to deal with the problem herself, but then a handy bunch of ‘runners turned up. And she worked on the basis that it’s easier to ask forgiveness rather than permission. So she went and deliberately poked the nest, drawing the ghouls out – but got more than she bargained for. The conversation was quite amusing – I danced around the issues and gave political answers i.e. not answering the question asked, but the one I wished they’d asked, so that I would be telling the truth with whatever I said, leading to confusion for the characters – and possibly the players too. There was a real sense of unease amongst most of the players about her, and they kept wondering when the other shoe would drop – which of course it never did. Neither did they did directly into the issue with any real vigour, so I let the issue slide, leaving them with their doubts about her. Finally, we have reached the market – the first smuggler market they’ve made it to, and a chance for them to find some nice shiny gear, make some contacts and see a whole gamut of seedy and sleezy people. But all of that to come next week! As usual, here are the notes from the session: Date: Monday 30/8/2060, Location: 36.02763, 52.01816 17:55 1. Aswon drops 1 ghoul, Hunter FA does a S on a spirit, Kai calling Anahita, Shimazu waiting, Marius flying in a hover over A, Tads levitates Anahita 2. 2nd round, Marius slides starboard to bring Anahita up in front of kai, A FA on spirit kills it, H, kills injured spirit, then miss ghoul. K - waves to Anahita, try to drag her in. Shimazu holds, Tads brings Anahita in, and goggles up, 3. Spirits appear inside, Shimazu held action kills, quick strike, kill. Aswon wounds, Hunter finishes a spirit, Marius flying away level and careful 4. Hunter closing rear ramp, accident on port engine, start to spin, Marius gains control. Hunter lets back ramp close, then moves up 5. Tads starts to banish, spirit wins by 1, Tads reroll, draw, buys 1 success, wins 6. Spirits go, banishing, Tads reroll, has to spend 2kp to get 2 success 7. Octopus accident power on starboard engine, crash test passed, Marius - 20 seconds, faces north 8. Tads continues to win banishing, by 1, down to F1, then pops it 9. Octopus appears on the lake surface 10. Hunter drops grenade in, does S damage to 8 ghouls, 11. Shimazu kills the last one inside 12. Aswon drops to octopus, one shots it with spear, soaking 10L acid, got 1, RR, fails, takes acid damage, 13. Chopper gets power back, Marius drops rear ramp, moves to recover Aswon, he climbs aboard, takes another box of L, takes jacket off. Tads casts create water over his head, takes another light regardless, moves to M, draining to 3L now, 14. Kai worried about Anahita, sends Marius text message to turn on white noise generator 15. Tads assenses Anahita - not injured, edge of alarm, but mostly triumph. 16. Kai goes to cockpit so he can voice com to team, a bit suspicious. Her reactions seem incongruous, her surprise a little fake. Her fear and relief though, seem very genuine, and she clearly felt that she was at risk during the fight. 17. Tads casts sterilise, on Aswon, gets him clean 18. fly back to the staging area, 19. Hunter, keeps weapons ready but on safe 20. Kai - "glad you're safe, but that wasn't a safe landing point, why did you pick that." 21. "clear area, no warlords, didn't think it would be that dangerous" 22. "why did you go there, on your own? That thing in the water" 23. "Is he ok? I have no idea what that was" 24. "kai questions, her on route, she expresses concern and danger 25. "I think I was really lucky" 26. can I strap you in for the flight? 27. Sure, do whatever you need, Kai goes to cockpit: she's not lying, as far as I can tell, 28. Shimazu psychology - sizing up the team, being careful, closed expressions, 29. Hunter - I don't trust her. 30. Kai - she's a good contact, but not seen her for months 31. Do a bug scanner on her - all clear 32. Marius - is she the right person? Kai - seems to be, 33. Kai - establishes ID. We're not normally into the full fisty cuffs. But that's a preview 34. Raises voice - "thank you for coming, wasn't aware there was a whole ghoul pack - and that thing in the water - eugh" 35. "and haunted - there were ghosts in that park." (Aswon) 36. head back to to the lake, check engines over, all fine, minor damage, refuel, 37. Anahita briefs them on the market, details of likely reactions, 38. talk about language - Farsi, maybe use hunter 39. Warn about non-Muslims, facial sculpt, maybe play it as having retainers / slaves 40. Aswon checks about head dresses 41. Kai and Anahita check, talk about new smuggler bases 42. Aswon gets photo of wolverine - have you seen any of these. General check - Tads and Kai, very successful 43. Then show them hovercraft - she hates them, tales of slavers, disgusts. Team and her share a moment 44. Kai says she may need to get home on her own - ok, will make arrangements 45. Kai telling about Germaine and Ludmilla, art patrons, swap details? Anahita says yes - establish what kind of "mad" they are. Kai mentions scorpions - Anahita. Checks over Purdey - ooh, ahh. 46. Discussion about what they are going to do at the market - Marius in the vehicle on over watch, rest of team in, astral backup on standby. 47. Agree to do rotations with drone and dual perception / captains chair. 1 materialised spirit to act as relay 48. Get to the market, get landed, no sign of hovercraft or Wolverine. |
|
|
|
|
Jun 30 2020, 08:51 PM
Post
#117
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Have just finished session 139 in our Shadowrun game - and we've passed the 3.5 year mark.
As was pointed out, with lockdown and remote working, we're probably playing more regularly and reliably at the moment than we were "normally"... |
|
|
|
|
Jul 5 2020, 10:34 AM
Post
#118
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Smuggler session 139 is live and published at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58191559798964/
Picking up at the entrance to the market, the team picked a direction and then started to browse the stores. Each store was marked on the map and colour coded to show type, and shared with the players, rather than filling them in as they went along – though it revealed a little of what there was, it cut down on any confusion or time having to ‘reveal’ data as we went along. Each of the stores I’d tried to create enough style / content to make them feel distinct and having some character, without going too deep. As they wandered along, I worked on a rough timing of 5 minutes per stall or so, and tracked through my timeline that I’d established for the night. At the predetermined points, when other teams came in Marius got to make some rolls and check out the other runners and smugglers, and decide if they were interesting enough or represented a threat to their plans, and if he needed to do anything about it – or at least that was the aim, keeping him in the loop and somewhat involved. They browsed the shops, found some stuff they wanted to buy, turned down others, and then got a good lock on the “Unsubtle” team as they arrived, and started their surveillance of them, having the impression that the meet was just about to go down at the end of the night. It’s not – but that will become apparent to them next week, when hopefully they’ll have some choices to make about how much they show their hands. As usual, the notes are listed below to compare/contrast to the story – but also shown are the list of stalls and the timeline established for the night so you can see it in context. Date: Monday 30/8/2060, Location: 35.69972, 51.33722, Time: 21:02 1. Aswon - drop inside or out? M - I would do in here. K, more witnesses and stuff, safer. T - might be in a private marquee. 2. Aswon - ask for Money. K - no, you're all "slaves". When team arrives only 5 people here already. 3. Aswon - we should check guns, maybe not cyber. Check for saviours, but dubious on quality 4. Aswon - we should ignore the slavers - Anahita, suggest not, you want to fit in. Tads - will avoid in case I see any of my kin. 5. Anahita - suggests one full circuit with her to make the team "known" with her. 6. K - size up the store. A vouches, H asks for 40mm for Antioch, digs out a 2nd box, "have to file the tabs off", improved offensive. Offers an RPG7 new from factory to Hunter, test the heft on that. H "yeah, good" Ogluck friendly sell 7. L - Aswon spots stall keeper running hot - thyroid gland. M-picks up site traffic at end of Aswons transmission, advice essential comms only. Describes mostly cosmetic. Some damgage resist, Aswon checks - biotech 9, not for him, Hunter good nano tech rolls, 8. M - describes has maps, routes, info - at a cost, willing to barter, swap info on local new smuggler stop 9. 21:15 - Marius spots Hope turning up, keep half an eye on them 10. N - 2 male (one filipino) 6 female (1 chinese), Shimazu checks for tattoos, at least 2 have triad owners • - outspoken cyber, step right up, expensive, all in decent packaging, expensive, get details 11. 21:30 - Marius spots girls being bought in by hope. Kai asks Tads to keep a magical eye out, be subtle, Tads - I can, but if you want this more often, I should spend time with Shimazu as he's trained for it. 12. P - smiles at Anahita, middle bow, face goes impassive as he looks at group, Shimazu psychology - thinks he is just being impassive. Kai, asks for something punchy in Manadarin. Get sales pitch for Steyr TMP, buys, for 1500, rolls pistols, about 20% off 13. Q - introduce himself, spot his moscow accent, Kai talks in russian to him, international travel, gets an idea of what is in the stall, 50/50 between civilian / security. 14. General look around the area - spot nothing untoward 15. R - pair of older guys, in farm clothes, Aswon shows and asks for better than his throwing knifes, finger twiddling and testing. 16. Dartboard up, split knives, throwing contest, Aswon wins, knives are not a toy for you, brings out plastic, 10 ceramic knives with special sharpening stone, 750 Nuyen 17. Cougar longblades at 4.5K, Shimazu asks for "special", checks with Anahita, pulls out a vibro knife, Shimazu psychology test - has impact, wants it. 2k 18. Swarm arrives, get good spots on them and the team. 19. S - spot cyrillic, don't recognise language, all the same manufactures, limbs up to full size 20. Aswon - spot the guards and watchers up the towers, 21. T - Action man commando, with camera in chest, demo, bigfoot - liquid or gas delivery system, 5k, Aswon pleads to buy it, rigger interface, battery system, budget camera, 17825, Too much!, Aswon negotiates - must be <10k, down to the basics, 11k, wants to see other toys. 2k quad copter grenade delivery system, take it. "Mean machine kid copter" 22. Unsubtle unass, troll annoyed, leaves shield, ork leaves swords, changes from happy green to moody purple catsuit, start to head in. 23. Kai+Anahita to go check rest of stall, send the others as a 3 to go elsewhere and look for target. Shimazu+Tads, Hunter and Aswon, split into pairs, H+A, get food and browse to south, 24. J - Kai, works out they are reflex recorders, goes for the upsell on damage compensators / pain editors 25. I - physically restrained dark skinned slaves, slavers white with cigars and drinks - Shimazu and Kai, spot and move on, Shimazu warns to avoid stall in manderin 26. H - spots the ID guy, flashback to Razi, on the tip of his tongue, doesn't recognise Kai, selling low rent IDs, mostly human and males, Kai asks for medical, got 1, for a vet. Gets 5, asks for 30, too high, takes 1 away, 25k, Kai asks for a reserve and come back later for a check - doesn't follow up 27. Bug killers arrive, Marius does another data squirt, confused by naga 28. Hunters spots Unsublte heading to food area, Aswon filters and listens, Marius moves drone around to other side 29. G - Kai listens to scam, signs up for 3 months 30. F - listen to description and selling pitch 31. E - Awight sonny boy, wot you after? K - nothing for me. Wot, no testicles. I've got enough. Snif snif - smell like a commie - hoppit! 32. Aswon hears - the lady is waiting for you already - tent #3. Resite the condor, text messages - from Kai - "team converge" 33. Aswon heads towards T, talk to vendor and observe stall, backup position of Q 34. Marius preps 2nd air drone, holds just before ignition, 35. Tads and Shimazu get some food and watch the other side of the tent Timeline – numbers in brackets show approx. number of people in market 21:02 Team arrive 21:15 Hope arrives, late, to deliver slaves to Baralan for internal use 21:30 (20) Menagerie arrive 21:45 Swarm arrive 22:00 Unsubtle arrives, Door carrying an 8CF box in cargo webbing on his back 22:00 (60) First cage match, generally fighting to the knockout, children and young men, indentured or slavers, sometimes junior crew. Few bookies outside. Matches every 20 minutes for 5 hours (15 fights total, later matches are more hardcore) 22:15 Drinking, betting at the Cage 22:30 (100) Bug killers arrive 23:00 (150) Arrange with organisers for a meeting in a tent - meeting a Fixer by the name of Shimmer for future job. Interview Unsubtle for a job - Shimmer ends up not being impressed, leaves after about 20 minutes. XXXXX [session stopped here] 23:20 Mono throws rock at the back of Shimmers head, hopefully where players can see and intervene if they wish. 23:30 Going Loud arrives 00:15 (200) Wolfpack arrives 00:30 Paladin arrives 01:00 Falcon does a circuit of the area in bird form, chance for Marius to spot 01:30 (225) Falcon arrives in orc form, dressed in a burka, meets unsubtle at the food vendors. Argument about the form of the data 01:45 If nothing intervenes, Falcon will call her broker and send him imagery of the job, furious at the delivering team and lack of intel 02:00 (175) Falcon starts disassembly of computer system, marking drive, taking RAID card and prying out encryption chips 02:45 (150) Finishes disassembly, gathers parts and starts to leave 03:15 Reaches 4 turns in, NE side of the park, small stash of goods in string bag and waiting spirits - 2 X F5 GF city spirits and 1 X F8 sky spirit. Will strip Burka, elastic band sustaining foci to leg, transform to eagle, and then carrying the bag make a slow getaway, then boosted by the spirit with others guarding. 04:00 (50) 05:00 Market closes, takedown begins Stalls A Guns Norikito, Japanese Yakuza aligned - wants to know who Shimazu works for. Disgusted by Ronin. Sells Renraku VSP guns and other good Japanese gear, with scopes and accessories. B Electronics Repair gear, spare parts, wire, cases, replacement optics, low end security cameras, stuff needed by gangs to secure their bases, bulk discounts available. Run by Imran and Falooq C Vehicle parts Provide low level armour (vehicle armour 1-2, personal armour 1-5, ballistic glass, mine plates, and systems like enviro-seal D Cyber Groks surplus. Tanamous front - lots of 2nd hand data jacks, smartlinks, wires 1, vcr 1, eyes and ear systems E Guns Frank Whittle est 1996 of Chipping Sodbury (Windsor Davis), purveyor of death - special weapon systems, flamethrowers, lasers, ELDAR, microwave, sonics, F Bio/nano Haramishas - good supply on muscle toner / augments, extended volume and adrenal pumps. G ID / Passes Manuel - info broker, fee based service for checking goods costs in area, monitors supply and demand, new service - bit of a pyramid scam, 1k pcm H ID / Passes Saeed Shirazi, Kai contact from Razi, Iran - selling R2-3 IDs I Slavers African slaves, playing on the mystic culture, some from Sudan, mis-identify Aswon and appeal to him. Egyptian slavers, J Bio/nano Mr Cee - Shiawaise affiliated, has a wide variety of reflex recorder cultured bioware for combat skills, and level 3-5 (but not 1-2) damage compensators K Guns Ogluks lucky rocket store. Basic RPGs and LAWS, simple tube mortars, has some supply of more advanced missiles - but only for good customers. L Bio/nano Mr Rand, South African Bioware shipper - Superthyroid glands for executive protection M ID/passes Indian Joe - NAN info broker, good knowledge of smuggler routers, bases and providers - expensive, but very reliable. N Slavers Bunch of liberated Bunraku / P-fix slaves, mix of races and sexes, from Japan, being moved west towards Turkey and the Balkans. O Cyber Doc Crush - American made cyber, Beta grade, but extra SI. Specialises in Senseware P Guns Mr Wei, Chinese, Triad funded, will refuse to speak to Kai - dirty Mongol. Lots of cheap ammo, and cases of basic SMGs and machine pistols at .8 SI, but poor quality Q Electronics Viktor Pavel - Encryption. Sells chips and encoders / decoders using Russian algorithms (they are actually compromised by the FSB) but are much cheaper than usual R Guns Grigor Oshin, Armenian Mafia, discreet pistols, grenades, knives and melee weapons S Cyber Bulgarian cyber systems - mostly dermal sheathing / body plating, or limb replacements. Unknown brand, but actually *extremely* good and massively under costed T Vehicle Generic white male, Eyes in the skies - good sensors disguised as kids toys, or high end surveillance and EW systems. Going to be met by "Falcon" a high level mage courier, excellent rep. Often travels shapeshifted as either a Wandering Albatross (67mph) or Andean Condor (55mph), with a spirit guard and 2nd spirit for movement (can hit 643 kph by doing this). Falcon, Ork, Female, 1.7m, 128kg, B6,Q5,S6,I7,C7,W8,R6,Ess 6, Grade 6, (Masking, Improved Masking, Flexible Masking, Invoking, Chanelling, Sensing) Moon Shaman +2 to illusion / transform manipulations. Shapechange 6, Extended Mist 5, Fashion 3, Makeover 3, Camouflage 3, Invisibility 7, Stealth 5, Silence 3 Shapechange 6 sustaining foci, Stealth 5 sustaining foci. Organisers - Baralan, The Red Scorpions, underground in east iraq, Baralan, Human, Male, Mid 30s, Datajack and eyes, some headware memory, commlink with R3 encryption, replaced cyber-leg with concealed Blazer 12 X Gang members, Humans, Male, mostly mid to late 20s, Ceska black scorpions, data jacks and commlinks with R3 encryption Fixer, Shimmer - Human, female, 47, works as a freelance manicurist in Karaj, arranges datasteals a lot. Dressed in tight fitting black combat trousers and a green sleeveless puffa jacket, wrap around chromed shades. |
|
|
|
|
Jul 12 2020, 02:56 PM
Post
#119
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
This weeks writeup is now complete, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58211950823964/
Picking up from last week, the players hit the plot twist – and then rapidly split. Half the players were convinced that the meeting was not with Falcon, it was an interview for another job (they were right) and that they needed to look elsewhere. But then the other half of the team said that’s exactly what we were *supposed* to think, and it was all a cunning ruse or evil ploy. Trouble is, this is the same kind of convoluted thinking they sometimes try and use in their own plans, to cover their tracks – so it seemed very plausible. As a result, they managed to sell this to the rest of the team, to a certain extent. The net result was that they were confused and unsure, and then had to trail and watch both the woman (Shimmer) and Unsubtle, to make sure they weren’t missing something. By the end of the night though, we’d got to the point where Falcon actually arrived (giving one of the players his moment of vindication as they more or less had guessed her approach spot on – this from the player who used to play an Owl shapeshifter in a different game, so he was probably used to the hoops *he* had to jump through!) and headed for a location, as did the Unsubtle team. Now they’re closing in, having had a bit more time to establish a few things. • Unsubtle are a team of giant cockwombles. • No really – they’re not nice. I pulled on all the elements of unprofessional behaviour seen at the table over the last few years to try and condense into a package of nastiness. Judging by the fact that most of the table are thinking about dropping the mission and just ganking them to do the world a favour, I’d say it’s hitting the spot. • The tower has at least two decent snipers present, and there’s about half a dozen guards with fully-auto machine pistols roving around. If they trip the alarm it’s going to get messy, really quickly. • There’s now a good number of other “pro” teams at the meet, who might also be very tasty in melee combat. • The probably have the location of the meet – one of the two smaller tents. • The location that Falcon is going to head to once she’s done – if they want to go with an outside snatch instead of one in the market. Going to be interesting to see what they decide to do on Tuesday! As usual, here are the notes to compare to the writeup: 1. Date: Monday 30/8/2060, Location: 35.69972, 51.33722, Time: 23:05 2. Marius - concerned we haven't seen falcon arrived 3. Aswon - could have been crew, missed, plan if we see tent flaps move with no-one there, swap to astral / thermo 4. Unsubtle go into tent - team survey, Aswon filter hearing, Tads checking astral 5. Listen to tent, can just about make out voices, but not meaning 6. Tads asks Shimazu to text Marius and ask for a re-sweep. 7. Aswon - check out the guards, about 3-4 wandering the area, now 100+ people, possibly co-ordinated from up top 8. Anahita wanders to the centre for food. 9. Aswon asks Marius to be ready to jam enemy comms 10. Kai going round back of tents, gets spotted by a guard, intercepted, back to front, Anahita comes back with food and drink to share, guard wanders off 11. Marius goes back through equipment, spots Shimmer enter the tent, basic description - then sorts back - sends basics to team "dark trousers, green and red top, small backpack" 12. Check watchers - not falcons, 1 3 and 1 4, doing circuits 13. Tads sends text to group, suggest one to each entrance/exit? K - leave it for now, see what happens with the tent 14. Loud cheer from the fighting pit - Aswon ignores and filters. 15. Shimmer - I want this to be a nice quiet job - nothing that makes the news the next day 16. Gorgon - but how will we know we really succeeded if there's not a massive crater? 17. Modulo - right on Gorgon. 18. Aswon - "seems to be a johnson / commission - not a drop off!" 19. Shimmer getting irate, them not caring, unprofessional banter 20. Marius finishes trace, arrived 9:45, wandered, got a drink then headed to the tent at 10:50 21. Tads assense Shimmer for mood, Everyone watching her, she storms out looks furious, glances around, heads for food. Tads gets 5 success. 22. Modulo comes out, cocks arm to throw at Shimmer, 23. Team goes on high alert, Tads ready to levitate - Aswon watching the tent / the box 24. Stone hits, no soak - but awful throw, only an M - impressive cursing 25. Guards *do* spot, and close, give modulo a telling off, then cocks his head and leaves 26. Shimazu heading to intercept and spots blood mopping in the pit 27. Boss comes out to head to Modulo "don't throw shit, or else," "or else what?" "or else, just don't" 28. Hunter spots 2 blue lasers over the heart, not wavering. 29. Tads private text to Kai - get price on Slaves who look like Aswon 30. Mark on map for unsubtle and Shimmers motorbike 31. Owner points at the chest, Modulo backs off, grin - "oh I was only joking", evil glare, just made a list. 32. Marius tempted to put the drone up 33. Kai - plan - Shimazu, go slash her tyres and then break off. Tads - head ahead of the target, towards bike. H+A, mirror woman. 34. Aswon - call me, explains that he thinks they still have the data - do you think he's good enough an actor. Kai - yes, something is wrong, she is manipulating things. 35. Marius keeps the condor on the Unsubtle team 36. H+A slow to let U go ahead of them 37. Tads spots Shimmer head towards Ogluk - team giggling and wondering WTF, dead drops, pissed off woman 38. Ogluk pulls out a FA kit for Shimmer 39. Unsubtle reach slavers and negotiate 40. Kai+Anahita, spot the wheel of fortune on freedom. 41. A+H move towards L, asks Mr Rand for a saviour - good negotiation 42. Shm+Tads out, Kai+Anahita watching U, Marius watching - "Going loud" have arrived, base details 43. Shimazu avoids Going Loud, Tads, gives a bit of space 44. Mr Rand offers the Saviour for 5k. supplies at 750 each. 6.5k, gets details and a "mark". Takes a photo of Aswons head "what you're not going to remember this face" - "hey the wife might be here next time!" 45. Shimazu outside, heading towards the box. Perception check - does not spot any roaming guards. Stealth check - reroll 46. Goes in, unspotted, slashes front tyre, then out sharpish, text kai "job done, now what", Kai responds - linger and watch 47. Anahita explains to Kai about the freedom fight 48. Modulo has bought a slave, heading to the tent #3, followed by K+A, get to the tent, guard "hey we still got 15 minutes", guard waves them in. Kai to team - if she leaves, take her down. 49. Fight, brutal bloody beatdown, one wins, mop arena, Bookies take a tithe, give to the winner 50. Kai hears U having fun with their slave. 51. Aswon watches Shimmer, trails her to Indian Joes. Marius spots Unsubtle come out, no change, with girl, heading back to slavers 52. U get back to slavers, hand the rental back, demands breakages, Unsubtle refuse, spots Shimmer, Modulo notified, looks for a rock. 53. Marius want to kill unsubtle - Tads suggests "earth banana" 54. Hunter grenades IPE offensive. 150 Ny per, buys all 10 55. Shimmer spots U, glares, Modulo tosses rock and smirks, 56. Midnight, another fight starts, 200+... kai tells Shimazu and Tads to come back in. 57. Shimmer talks to the other 2 id people, then checks the crowd, she and hunter lock eyes for a moment, then she spots swarm and heads to them in the middle 58. Marius spots Wolfpack coming in. 59. Kai hears Shimmer talking to Swarm, gets her name, she pitches the job at them 60. Tads suggests - have they left the data in tent 3 for someone to pickup. 61. Kai try to get in the tent for an amulet, 500 for 30 mins, 1 grand for an hour, checks the schedule, walks away 62. Shimmer and swarm go to tent 3; unsubtle watching the fighting pit, being nobs 63. half past midnight - paladin arrives, Marius recognises, Tads checks - F8 vehicle mask up. Tads grabs sig. Team head towards the entrance 64. Kai checks stalls A-D, goes back to B, asks for consultancy via trid, 1k per day, Kai gives them 1k and asks them to get in touch With Rashid, gets details to pass to Rashid as well 65. 1am - Marius spots the condor circling the site, 3 circuits then breaks off to 2 o'clock. 66. Marius picks up strange echo on team channel - immediately kills, full reboot, warns Kai - thinks they were trying, had not broken it. 67. General market stuff - top teams going to organisers tent, with others. Some singles go in. Shimazu gets sword, gets to entrance to stake it out 68. Masking checks - not penetrated either way, she enters the market and heads to food stalls, as do unsubtle |
|
|
|
|
Jul 19 2020, 07:36 PM
Post
#120
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Hello everyone! Another week done, and this weeks writeup can be found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58231388683964/
This week we got to the end of the marketplace job, and all their careful planning went straight out of the window with a single bad stealth roll - or at least that’s how it felt. The planned order of events ran ahead, and they watched as the Falcon, the courier, broke down all the equipment to the smallest possible units she could move the data in, to try and recover later. Furious at being betrayed by Unsubtle, she was in no mood for Kai’s smooth talking. Once she’d done, the overall plan was reasonable – snag her on the way back to her takeoff point, and steal the stuff. However, when she spotted Shimazu, she decided to tackle him head on, rather than run. Ali (Tads) reacted very quickly when I described how she’d put down the package so she could do stuff with both hands, and there was a ‘Tom! Grab the stuff! RUN!’ shouted across Discord – which he did. And then of course, things got interesting – as I’d put Falcon down without any offensive magic – no combat or elemental manipulation spells, by design. So, out came the extended area effect F5 mist spell, and that created a lot of chaos. Tokens were being moved around on the map almost at random as people bumbled through the darkness and tried to head in the right direction. Then shapechanging into a bear and chanelling a spirit, Falcon gave chase and caught up with Shimazu, trying to get her stuff back. She just wasn’t prepared for a G5 physical adept, attuned to a F4 weapon foci, going “all in” on his attack. That damage staged to D, and just one shotted her with no arguments – even throwing in some re-rolls, she didn’t get close to soaking that. I rolled and her channelled spirit went free, and turned hostile – but Tads was quick to banish that one. I decided to improve a little here and had a 2nd free spirit with a healing pact, able to bring Falcon back from the brink of death, to see what the players would do. I wondered if Shimazu was going to slice and dice it, but they decided to take the “honourable” path and left it alone, fleeing the scene… so Falcon (who lost a magic point in the deadly attack) will be back at some point later, hunting down the team that stained her employment status. But that’s for another day, way down the line. So – they’re out of Iran, and I’m going to quietly encourage them to go back to the ranch to see what Nadia has been up to, and spring some news on Marius, they can offload the data, and then we’re going to be doing a bit of hard flying northwards, back through the Quarry and up to Samara to go and see their favourite Russian Brigadier. And then they can deal with spirit attacks from Yakut! Oh what fun! As usual, here are my ingame notes to compare with the narrative… Date: Tuesday 31/8/2060, Location: 35.69972, 51.33722, Time: 01:30 1. Shimazu outside, Hunter heading back to drop off goods and get supplies, Marius putting drone up to patrol near the maze area 2. Figure pulls up seat at table with unsubtle 3. F - you have the data? U - yes, course we do. Do sheep swim at midnight? F - don't be silly, sheep are the wrong colour to swim at midnight. 4. U - right, we'll sort this out then, shall we. Door, hold this for me. 5. Door - stop this from falling over will you - balances cargo container next to F. F put a hand on it to steady it. 6. Modulo - psyche! Right, cargo delivered. Ok motherfuckers - let's bounce before those slavers find out how much syphalis-K Gorgon gave their meat! 7. F - hey, what are you talking about. THIS isn't the cargo that was contracted. 8. M - sure it was baby - big data. Big data comes in big boxes. 9. F - you were supposed to get this out to chips. I can't move this... 10. M - not our problem sweetheart, you touched the cargo, you took the goods. Our work is done. Smile bitch. *click of camera* 11. F - This was NOT the deal. This is unacceptable. 12. M - not to me it's not. We got paid to grab the stuff and get it to you. Our job is done. If you're in shit river without a paddle, ain't our fault. 13. F - I do not accept this cargo, and if you want to make an argument out of this, I will. 14. Phys add changes E L wire to flames shifting, pulls two small dikoted knives about 20cm long. Door cracks his knuckles, Gorgon engages his pain resistance (second chance for assenses to learn non-standard technique) 15. Aswon and Tads spot the magical power. Tads assenses and gets idea on technique 16. Aswon, Tads and Kai(Anahita) - watching the cargo. Kai asks Anahita for 10 minutes, Anahita leaves the team 17. Kai <going to help, ambush me and the target, Aswon will need your help> 18. H <have a deck, we can copy the data to chips> Hunter runs to tilt wing and unloads, grabs burger. 19. Aswon gets food, to get near target. Kai approaches F 20. F getting data on table, to examine 21. K would you like a hand moving that, I have a slave nearby 22. F who are you? K my name is thomas, I'm a trader, I'm leaving soon, can give you a hand. F - no, I'm fine thanks. K - no problem, I'll be around, looking for my staff. Oh - there you are. Approaches Aswon. K berates him a little. 23. Courier looks at data - half a rack, head in hand, looking at half a rack. 24. She calls, says hello in Thai, Kai recognises greeting., Rand for few minutes. 25. F - calls "Mr Thomas, I've changed my mind." "how can I help", "go buy me screwdrivers!" Aswon goes to buy, She starts PDA search 26. K - offers technical advice, we have a vehicle nearby. "No thanks, just a toolkit will be fine!" Aswon returns, Kai hands over toolkit and change, then leaves. 27. K <looks like pulling apart, expect action in the next 5-10 mins> Plans with ASwon to send him out to the vehicle, prep ambush 28. Vendor tries to get her to leave, no food - gives money, burger and sends him for a gas soldering iron. Kai thinks she is good at tech, not familiar with this option. 29. F - goes for disassembly, staring people down who approach. Kai asks for Aswon to run interference to keep her undisturbed. 30. Guard comes, Aswon steps out of his way. She promises to clear up, radio check, "there's a fee", hands over a few thousand (aswon spots) guard pockets and leaves 31. K calls A over, "warm up the car, take all this stuff back, will be back to you in the car park" 32. team preps ambush, Shimazu as tripwire due w of entrance, H+T to the north, A south, grabs rifle loads hollowpoints, K on the courier 33. Unsubtle leave 2:20 with african slave. 34. 2:30 Falcon calls over vendor for bags, markers, makes piles of kit, glances at Kai. Kai "flirts" a little, keeps reading PDA. 35. 2:45 Falcon, getting ready to leave. K oh - leaving soon. F - yeah, don't follow me. Tells security guard that Kai is looking after the litter. 36. Shimazu spots F leaving, north side, trying to hide between two people. Raises the alarm. 37. Team go onto comms, Shimazu 7 stealth to follow 38. Kai packs box and leaves, making a show, leaving encumbered, heading to tilt wing 39. Falcon notices Shimazu, turns and strides towards Shimazu to confront, bad stealth roll, she approaches sniffs and gets scents. S- allergies? F - allergic to being setup.. puts down bags, hand in burka. Shimazu warns not to go for it. She slows and puts her bags down, then pulls out her phone. 40. Shimazu grabs bags and runs towards hunter and tads (Ali's suggestion to grab the bags, karma award) 41. Combat rounds start, Shimazu first, 23 - legging it - athletics check to run, 1 success, not falling. Marius on 18, Falcon - 500m Fog, Hunter spots shimazu disorientate, wandering north, blocks thermo from condor 42. Shimazu heads north, H leads T to intercept. Aswon moves outside around to west, Kai back to craft, Marius watching. Bear roar - hunter detects 43. Keep doing same thing 44. woolly mammoth on the back, just catching tads, channelled great form 45. drop the bags, quick draw sword, ok, combat starts - 13+rr7=20 success vs 8. Sword in the head, she drops, 46. 1 spirit goes free, 1 healing pact on Falcon. Shimazu stabs aggressive one, mist starting to dissipate 47. Kai to door gun, Aswon heading towards combat, hunter sends co-ords to team, grabs the bags 48. Tads banishes to force 2. Hunter tases the healing spirit, no damage 49. Marius spots guards going ape - tube weapons and rifles. Kai - experience with markets, everyone for themselves. 50. Marius moving the chopper to north edge of the shanty town, on the road. 51. Shimazu bows and apologises, did warn her, etiquette test, does ok. runs into the shanty town 52. Tads "we didn't intend to harm or kill, only to steal, voice fades off into the darkness, carried by hunter, good magical etiquette test, 53. get back to the chopper, get the drones and people, Marius then heads east 54. Hunter gives bags to kai, bug scans - looks clean, then heads to seat 55. Out over the sea, to Baku, not detected by Iranian control on the way out, protected by ED and F4 GF earth spirit Timeline 21:02 Team arrive 21:15 Hope arrives, late, to deliver slaves to Baralan for internal use 21:30 (20)Menagerie arrive 21:45 Swarm arrive 22:00 Unsubtle arrives, Door carrying an 8CF box in cargo webbing on his back 22:00 (60)First cage match, generally fighting to the knockout, children and young men, indentured or slavers, sometimes junior crew. Few bookies outside. Matches every 20 minutes for 5 hours (15 fights total, later matches are more hardcore) 22:15 Drinking, betting at the Cage 22:30 (100)Bug killers arrive 23:00 (150)Arrange with organisers for a meeting in a tent - meeting a Fixer by the name of Shimmer for future job. Interview Unsubtle for a job - Shimmer ends up not being impressed, leaves after about 20 minutes. 23:20 Mono throws rock at the back of Shimmers head, hopefully where players can see and intervene if they wish. 23:30 Going Loud arrives 00:15 (200)Wolfpack arrives 00:30 Paladin arrives 01:00 Falcon does a circuit of the area in bird form, chance for Marius to spot 01:30 (225)Falcon arrives in orc form, dressed in a burka, meets unsubtle at the food vendors. Argument about the form of the data 01:45 If nothing intervenes, Falcon will call her broker and send him imagery of the job, furious at the delivering team and lack of intel 02:00 (175)Starts disassembly of computer system, marking drive, taking RAID card and prying out encryption chips 02:45 (150)Finishes disassembly, gathers parts and starts to leave 03:15 Reaches 4 turns in, NE side of the park, small stash of goods in string bag and waiting spirits - 2 X F5 GF city spirits and 1 X F8 sky spirit. Will strip Burka, elastic band sustaining foci to leg, transform to eagle, and then carrying the bag make a slow getaway, then boosted by the spirit with others guarding. 04:00 (50) 05:00 Market closes, takedown begins Stalls A Guns Norikito, Japanese Yakuza aligned - wants to know who Shimazu works for. Disgusted by Ronin. Sells Renraku VSP guns and other good Japanese gear, with scopes and accessories. B Electronics Repair gear, spare parts, wire, cases, replacement optics, low end security cameras, stuff needed by gangs to secure their bases, bulk discounts available. Run by Imran and Falooq C Vehicle parts Provide low level armour (vehicle armour 1-2, personal armour 1-5, ballistic glass, mine plates, and systems like enviro-seal. No names or details, D Cyber ‘Grok’s refurbishment parts’. Tanamous front - lots of 2nd hand data jacks, smartlinks, wires 1, vcr 1, eyes and ear systems E Guns Frank Whittle est 1996 of Chipping Sodbury (Windsor Davis), purveyor of death - special weapon systems, flamethrowers, lasers, ELDAR, microwave, sonics, F Bio/nano Haramishas - good supply on muscle toner / augments, extended volume and adrenal pumps. G ID / Passes Manuel - info broker, fee based service for checking goods costs in area, monitors supply and demand, new service - bit of a pyramid scam, 1k pcm H ID / Passes Saeed Shirazi, Kai contact from Razi, Iran - selling R2-3 IDs I Slavers African slaves, playing on the mystic culture, some from Sudan, mis-identify Aswon and appeal to him. Egyptian slavers, J Bio/nano Mr Cee - Shiawaise affilitiated, has a wide variety of reflex recorder cultured bioware for combat skills, and level 3-5 (but not 1-2) damage compensators K Guns Ogluks lucky rocket store. Basic RPGs and LAWS, simple tube mortars, has some supply of more advanced missiles - but only for good customers. L Bio/nano Mr Rand, South African Bioware shipper - Superthyroid glands for executive protection M ID/passes Indian Joe - NAN info broker, good knowledge of smuggler routers, bases and providers - expensive, but very reliable. N Slavers Bunch of liberated Bunraku / P-fix slaves, mix of races and sexes, from Japan, being moved west towards Turkey and the Balkans. O Cyber Doc Crush - American made cyber, Beta grade, but extra SI. Specialises in Senseware P Guns Mr Wei, Chinese, Triad funded, will refuse to speak to Kai - dirty Mongol. Lots of cheap ammo, and cases of basic SMGs and machine pistols at .8 SI, but poor quality Q Electronics Viktor Pavel - Encryption. Sells chips and encoders / decoders using Russian algorithms (they are actually compromised by the FSB) but are much cheaper than usual R Guns Grigor Oshin, Armenian Mafia, discreet pistols, grenades, knives and melee weapons S Cyber Bulgarian cyber systems - mostly dermal sheathing / body plating, or limb replacements. Unknown brand, but actually *extremely* good and massively under costed T Vehicle Generic white male, Eyes in the skies - good sensors disguised as kids toys, or high end surveillance and EW systems. Going to be met by "Falcon" a high level mage courier, excellent rep. Often travels shapeshifted as either a Wandering Albatross (67mph) or Andean Condor (55mph), with a spirit guard and 2nd spirit for movement (can hit 643 kph by doing this). Thai Falcon, Ork, Female, 1.7m, 128kg, B6,Q5,S6,I7,C7,W8,R6,Ess 6, Grade 6, (Masking, Improved Masking, Flexible Masking, Invoking, Chanelling, Sensing) Moon Shaman +2 to illusion / transform manipulations. Shapechange 6, Extended Mist 5, Fashion 3, Makeover 3, Camouflage 3, Invisibility 7, Stealth 5, Silence 3 Shapechange 6 sustaining foci, Stealth 5 sustaining foci. Organisers - Baralan, The Red Scorpions, underground in east iraq, Baralan, Human, Male, Mid 30s, Datajack and eyes, some headware memory, commlink with R3 encryption, replaced cyber-leg with concealed Blazer 12 X Gang members, Humans, Male, mostly mid to late 20s, Ceska black scorpions, data jacks and commlinks with R3 encryption Fixer, Shimmer - Human, female, 47, works as a freelance manicurist in Karaj, arranges datasteals a lot. Dressed in tight fitting black combat trousers and a green sleeveless puffa jacket over red t-shirt, wrap around chromed shades. Essence 5 - little headware, datajack, some ram, radio. |
|
|
|
|
Jul 27 2020, 08:06 PM
Post
#121
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Evening all, and apologies – a little later than I’d like with this one – but still, Episode 142 is now published and can be read at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...58252604413964/
This week I managed to steer the players back to their home base for a night’s sleep, so I could trigger a major plot development – the pregnancy of Nadia. Or at least, I *think* it’s going to be a major plot point – something that will change and shape Marius a great deal and alter the team dynamic. It may not though – after all, it’s had first contact with the players now. I’m still somewhat undecided where to go on this one – do I buck the tropes, and Nadia has an uncomplicated birth, a healthy child and just starts to raise it in the background while the team go on their quest to save the world, giving them a sense of somewhere grounded when they come back? Or do I go full Deus Ex Machina and have the very pregnant Nadia kidnapped while the team are away from the ranch, by some ill-advised Mafia goons and then just wait for the *biblical* explosions to happen? I think I’ll steer away from something like a childhood disease or birth complication that would – or should – lead to intense RP between Nadia and Marius, as that would probably take a writeup by itself, and also would be something I would prefer to happen between two players anyway. But anyway – once the big news was dealt with, the team got in the chopper and high-tailed it back up north to Samara, landed and then Kai very unwisely split the party, leaving their caster behind and ventured out into the darkness where they were prey to the spirits and their acts of petty vandalism and aggression. I have some fairly major plot coming up that I need to set the stage for, so at the moment the spirits are more pains in the ass with a side order of mild assault rather than flat out deadly – at least so far, so the initial assault wasn’t too crazy. But, we’ll see how they get reunited tomorrow night, and take it from there. As usual, notes from the session are shown below, to compare to the narrative version… 1. Date: Tuesday 31/8/2060, Location: 38.53375, 51.43924, Time: 03:35 2. Computer checks to look at the hardware - H(3), M(1), detail on what needs to be done 3. M -go to Baku to hire a decker 4. Tads - can't we send it 5. M - I thought we had to transmit it. A - we can call and discuss. 6. Talk about leaving until after the Russian base, generally not happy with that 7. Call spook, she's in, eating breakfast 8. A - we have the stuff, small complication. S - I don't like complications. A- Describes situation. S - what kinds of dicks do that. 9. M - Nadia could do it. 10. K - worried about traps and attacks from tracers. Marius - I think it's ok, WNG, can check it. Access it offline. Tortoise mode - but there is still risk 11. K - How much risk. M - hardware (but we can scan), Software - but do offline 12. Aswon to spook, bear with me - plans are afoot. Also we're building an underground base - spook lols. 13. Spook - data is going to degrade, easy theft to spot. Aswon tells the tale about unsubtle 14. M takes evasive route to the ranch, check for astral tails. Asks Hunter to clean the parts - Hunter defaults to Tads for a sterilise, Aswon says Falcon is good, doesn't tell details to keep her "pure", 15. Kai - Falcon won't recognise me. Shimazu - think back to sniffing - might recognise his scent. 16. Spook - get it put back together and over to me ASAP. 17. Marius calls Nadia, helipad is ready, will be lit. Windsock, downlights, H lit. 18. T - we need to sort out wakeup 19. M - 1800km, need 8 hours sleep 20. A - what is best for you Tads - arrival time? 21. T - don't think it matters, but sooner rather than later. - when we arrive, do it by air, or land nearby and get a lift to be subtle 22. A - does that change when we will arrive? 23. M - planning on sleep, not leaving until 3pm or so. 24. A - so do we say after dark or after dawn, for spirits. 25. Land for about 4am, get to the ranch. 26. Team sort out gear to take. Kai talks to the family, checks on business. Germaine happy, good recommendation. Germaine was an ok guest. Education going ok, settling with the program. Area on the up, cops behaving, come to check on the ranch. Nadia is hiring people, she says it's ok. 27. Tads checks the wards are still up - all good. 28. Aswon - Tads, hey, silver weapons? Tads - maybe, Aswon - work for at least the first hit. Tads - can check with Aslick. Also still have the punch dagger, unbonded, we have a phys-ad without a weapon. Aswon - are we sure? Kai with an assassination weapon? Tads - even a low force weapon, we have skilled blade users who can teach. When we face the thing we won't talk about, at least he can hurt it. 29. *Marius gets message* 30. You're woken up from your sleep to a strange sensation - something unusual just happened. You're lying there, wondering if someone is creeping around the in house, or if it was a helicopter in the distance. 31. Then you experience it again. As you're lying next to Nadia, a hand draped over her while you listen carefully to your surroundings, you feel the tiny little kick in her belly. She grumbles slightly in her sleep, shifts slightly and then a tiny smile tugs at her lips as she gently rubs her stomach with her free hand and settles back to a deep sleep. 32. Tads up at breakfast time for prayers and to top up food. 33. 4 guests staying at the ranch, two couples 34. Helipad laid - rebarred, lighting, Aswon talk to Kai - get IR landing lights. Flood defences dug, around house, workshop and helipad. Get fuel status at 10k. Kai wakes Shimazu up and starts getting stuff ready. 35. Nadia gets up to look at computer stuff. - 6 hours, 3 hours, 4 - Nadia estimates 2-4 days. 36. When Marius wakes up, wants a walk with Nadia in private. 37. Do you have something you want to tell me - yes, shows, glowing, talk about what to do. Not like my dad is going to officiate at the ceremony. Marius - not a religious person. So - lets not make it a religious ceremony then. Hugs, tears, reassurances. Do we tell the rest, wait until after the job. Nadia goes with his decision, Marius being respectful, our decision. After Russia. Tells him to be careful. 38. Nadia finds Kai, I need 65K, goes through the list, Kai spots that the spreadsheet is bigger, has scroll bars, explains her plan for the base - Kai gives her the 65k+37 and change and some more take them down to 400k exactly. 39. Plan to leave 18:30, quarry, planned eta 23:00 40. Ask Tads to call the doctor to get landing details / clearance - Tads points out that Kai should call the captain, VM but no room left in mailbox 41. Tads calls the Doc, checks, call back in 10 minutes, gets codes and assurances that a hanger is available 42. Kai calls ahead to the quarry, makes fuel arrangements 43. Smooth border crossing, not even a sniff of detection. 44. Kai - how did you murder the thing so quickly. Shimazu - just stabbed it. Sword upgrade helped. Strike first, strike hard. K- centering? S - yeah. that would help,. 45. K - what about the vibroblade? S - not so much, more of a secondary. 46. Quarry landing is ok, 5k for fuel. Talk to Vishtar - empty at the moment, quiet, talk about confederating with Rashid, hesitant but listens. Asks for a matrix meeting room, if it works out, offers a card. Asks for "Domestic stuff". 47. Head up to Samara, no random encounter. Come in as directed. Tads spots spirits and relays, Shimazu goes on prism, Hunter on back ramp, Aswon on sides 48. Shimazu assensses, otherworldly, gets a view on the spirits, Marius comes in to land 49. 1 spirit comes in to accident them - guard spirit counters it. 50. Tads advises not to land in the middle, Marius assesenses, not make that much a difference. 51. 2nd accident attempt, no result. Marius lands fast and flares hard. 52. Bird towed into hanger. Very busy, Marius spots lots of birds being worked on to fix external components that are easy to spot and accident. 53. Kai planning to go visit the Brigadier with Shimazu, rest stay in hanger. Tads asks to go to the hospital to heal people, but after hanger assessment 54. Tads puts 4/5 spell defence on S+K, before they leave 55. Assessment - needs the whole team to do the area, will need lots of work. T - big spirits will get in, but a 6 will keep the little out. A - big one better, may still stop the big ones. Small birds are attack choppers, easy to do. T - will they be happy with wards on the outside? A - they should be. H - they should be more combat attack. 56. Spirit casts decrease reflex on Shimazu - works, past spell defence. Tads warns the others that S+K are under attack. 57. Free spirits gather small ones to gather and ready to attack as a pack. S+K run for a warded barracks - 250m to go, 600+m from the hanger. 58. Aswon tells officer that spirits are busy - now is a good time to move! 59. Hunter looks for way to get to the roof. Aswon grabs sniper rifle and gets onto roof, drops rope for Hunter 60. Tads puts up SD on Hunter and Aswon before they get out of LOS 61. Pack tears guard spirits apart, after trying accidents, then get into melee range of Shimazu, he multi-strikes and kills 2 62. Blizzard cast at M, stages to S, Kai soaks, Shimazu takes an L and fails knockdown test. 63. Kai turns to help Shimazu. Spirit casts Blizzard again, stages to D this time, 64. Aswon and Hunter on top, have LOS, see cone of cold. But others inside. |
|
|
|
|
Aug 2 2020, 06:04 PM
Post
#122
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Evening everyone – Smuggler session 143 is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56973740102581/
This week they were mostly digging their way out of the hole they dug themselves into last week – getting a vehicle warded and getting to Kai and Shimazu, then getting 4 of them to the hospital and getting a better idea of what is going on. Fixing the blood clot on the captain will help get him back on his feet, and that’s going to help them next week a great deal. The Brigadier was getting a bit peeved with how long they were taking to arrive, and hates what’s been happening to his men – but they’ll get some rep back with him for fixing his right hand man. The “contacts” in the woods are unfortunately for the team just a pair of wandering bears, doing what bears do in the woods – so it’s not going to go well for them if the team stage an assault or even worse start dropping mortars in the area. Still – might teach the team a bit of a lesson about checking their “intel” more carefully if that’s what happens. Otherwise, the plan to get the snipers on duty will work against the small spirits, and if the team put up a ward on the roof, to give the snipers a nest to work from, they can get rid of a good chunk of the threat – leaving the two free spirits to deal with. If the situation arises though next week, one of the spirits will use their custom power on Tads, forcing her to astral project and follow them (it’s an awakened only version of the desire reflection power in essence). With any luck the team will realise quickly that tads only has 6 hours before her body dies from being separated for too long – so they will have to grab her body, and give chase in the tilt-wing, leading them to the Yakut forward base, at which point they can launch an assault, and we hit the next major plot point – where they encounter a shard or part of the spirit that has enslaved the Yakut region and subjugated the population. Fun times, and a major loot item / PC power up potentially on the cards! As usual, here are the notes from the session – a few deviations this week, mostly reorganising where and who got information about the base, to try and improve the flow a little. 1. Date: Tuesday 31/8/2060, Location: 53.38042, 50.27575, Time: 23:15 2. Tads to Marius - get back in the tilt-wing please. He's doing post flight checks. Tads: if you're inside they can't get to you. Tads puts shielding on M, maintains SD on Aswon/Hunter. 3. Aswon - are we going to start killing? Bad idea, summon small ones again. Need a plan before kicking off 4. Kai and Shimazu in the top company barracks, 200m from the main building. 5. Sgt appears with pipe, tells them to stop or get bashed in the face. Kai explains why they are here. 6. Calls for Vasily to go check credentials. Vasily returns, confirms they are allowed to be here, goes to fetch medkit 7. Kai uses medkit, heals Shimazu, thanks Vasily. Asks how long they have been here - refuses to answer 8. How do we get to the main HQ. Vasily says dawn and dusk, they tend to disappear for a while 9. Go to phone, talk to ops office. Describes that they are here but want to get in. Are you sure you're specialists? Put me through to the infirmary 10. Kai gets put through to docs - trapped in building. Doc: Not filling me with confidence. Asks after the captain, in a coma, last 2 days. Not a normal coma, not induced, but not natural. Unsure. 11. Asks Sgt if they have special ammo - no, all gone? What all? Yes, all, used in the attack. Funny look at Kai. Kai - do you need to go to HQ. No - we have a phone. 12. Tads to Marius, (in azerbaijani) - would water based paints damage the hull? No, he thinks not. 13. Hunter descends into the hanger. Marius looks around for people - it's the nightshift. 14. Looking for vehicles to use: tow trucks and generator trucks. 15. Base is locked down, troops moving in groups, everything affecting, eating in barracks. 16. Kai want's Tads and Aswon to ward and then come in truck, leave Hunter and Marius at the chopper. Ask Hunter to go get the vehicle. Marius preps Condor for surveillance. Hunter negotiates ok, gets the truck. Get a tow vehicle. Aswon comes down as well. 17. Check where the radar room is - it's in the HQ area, on top of the building. Brigade is back earlier than expected, somewhat surprised 18. Going for a F6 ward, Aswon=2, Tads=3, 1 hour 10 minutes to complete. Due by 00:40, lasts one week, both take light stun. Aswon practices with truck. Hunter talks with local crew - morale in the shitter, spirit attacks intensifying. Someone magical from Moscow was supposed to come, but nothing happened. 19. 00:40 1/9/2060 - launch condor, Aswon drives 20. Hunter confirms with crews - only get attacked in the open, never in a building. Marius leaves rear ramp down as a bolt hole for the air crew. Marius looking for heat sigs in the woods or other anomalies 21. Aswon spots something on the drive - not sure if a spirit or wildlife, gets Tads to have another look. Tads spots 3-4 small spirits heading for the hangers, in Astral. 22. Emerge into brigade area, crash test as they get hit with a blizzard, fail, reroll, fail, buy one pip - success. 23. Tads checks force, assenses, gets 1 success, F6 + some spirit energy. Small spirits have different sigs, one of 2 types. Vehicle arrives at Brigade HQ. Do a swap - Aswon into the back, Shimazu into the front, blizzard blast just too late to catch Shimazu before he gets under cover. 24. Drive back to Ambulance entrance, under canopy, relatively safe 25. Infirmary is rammed, extra cots, lots of breaks and sprains, more serious is crush injuries. 26. Doc arrives explains nature of injuries, she consents to treatment for the Captain, she's worried about him. Shallow life signs. Tads assenses captain, 5 successes. S+K do the same generally. Despair+Fear. S - psychology - bad type of combat skills against the troops. Give morale / pep talks, but no healing needs to be done. 27. Tads - checks with doc about visible healing magic - go ahead. Cast F5 heal. Gets 2 successes on coma cure. Bio signs climb. Doctor announces he will get better. Ragged cheer. 28. Marius spots large bears out in the woods - 750m out from the barracks. Hunter is running data search for "best" ak-97s 29. Marius - reaction check - drone attacked. Marius staying jumped into drone - soaking body 2+4 combat pool, moderate damage, crash test on 5s, 2 successes, stuck on trees. Shuts down the drone and then rigs out - crash is about 350-400m from hanger 30. Hunter stays with the troops to supervise them / do morale 31. Shimazu tries psychometry - no successes, unclear, muddled thoughts - pain, fear, nasty. Tads whispers she can check, small discussion, it's worth it - just don't poke around. Just look for that info only. Get a first hand description. Ask the doc - she describes ordinance falling. Doc confirms all in the infirmary since they came back 32. Brigade took 20-30% casualties in Yakut. Brigadier normally up at dawn 33. Kai asking how long Tads needs for healing- could be from a few hours to all day. Kai says 1) to concentrate on worst injuries, leave the minor. 2) ward the vehicles to give them some mobility. 3) Neutralise spirits 4) shape earth tunnels practical / useful? 34. Tads - doing small wounds would be useful/easy/raise morale. Kai - do whatever you feel is best, whatever is efficient. 35. Aswon - brainwave, after the snipers. Doc calls ops officer down - c shift, but in charge. Magic theory, high power weapons. Spread the word. "We got told we couldn't affect the magic creatures". 36. Kai ask about getting Marius in on comms net, maps of area and what is artillery like - or mortars. Check with the brigadier. 37. Hunter remembers about the snipers from the helicopter in the shifter fight in the woods. 38. Kai asking what it would take to pull the spirits down to ground level - Tads, your voice! Aswon - agro and run underground. Quick discussion about what banishing involves - Kai and Tads talking. Dangers of banishing. Magic background checks - Tads, personal domain / hidden life. 39. Kai - what is their Achilles heel? None really, not except true name. 40. K - what's its' motivation? Aswon - maybe the special ammo, revenge for corruption of the manasphere. 41. Marius - it might be their plan to just lock down the base. 42. T - be careful about killing /disrupting the big ones or the summoners - small ones might go free. 43. A - if you can mind-probe to get free names, that's good. Also, in the woods, low LOS. 44. Work out shape earth corridor digging limitations. Dig out to the shamen and surprise assault? |
|
|
|
|
Aug 9 2020, 09:27 AM
Post
#123
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Good morning everyone. This week’s writeup is now published and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56987981242581/
Well! Fun and games this week. Lots of plotting by the players, discussing how to defeat the spirits, how they were going to plan their assault, what to do about the free spirits etc. It was quite a slow start, with not much happening – but knowing what I had planned, I was happy with this. After the snipers attacked the spirits, it triggered “phase 2” of the attack, with the spirits turning on the team rather than the Russians, and plotting against them. After that it was just a case of waiting for the team to be in the right position where one of the big spirits could see Tads and use it’s unique power against her. The fact that she’d just come from the meeting with the snipers, which had triggered her “mild allergy to cordite” was icing on the cake, as it put her on a small negative modifier to her test. Aswon tried to grab her, but narrowly missed his roll – and then Tads was away with the spirit, leaving the area. Aswon’s play Jez immediately realised that a clock had started, and they had 6 hours to get her reunited with her body, or she’d die, and got the others fired up. At that point, the players became much more reactive rather than proactive and hopefully when the tempo picked up a bit it felt much more pressured than the very relaxed start of the evening. They took out the two signatures in the woods – I don’t think they’re ever going to realise that it was just a pair of normal black bears, nothing special, no particular threat – but they have created a nice background count 3 area after committing a bit of carnage on the forest – that’s been added to the map for future use. After that it was time to track the weak astral signature linking the body and soul, and go haring off to the next location for a nice set piece battle. I was hoping that Marius would join the team on the ground to try and recover Tads, and was clear to labour the point that the tree canopy was very dense and thick, providing almost complete concealment for what was going on below – but he elected to stay in the vehicle. So, he’ll be doing top cover, and I’ll probably add in some shapeshifter or controlled birds or other aerial targets to give him something to do during the ground fight next week. And hopefully, we can battle through spirits, shifters and mutant plants to reach the sacrificial altar before the horrible crystal that is levitating over her soul manages to consume her, and the players can blow it away – unlocking the 2nd campaign special item / reward. Tuesday is probably going to be taken up by a single rolling continuous fight, so really not sure how the writeup will go. The notes are likely to be quite cryptic though as I try to keep the combat moving, and I may take a slightly anarchy style approach to stop it turning into an epic dice fest. As usual, here are the notes from the session that drove the narrative: 1. Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 53.38042, 50.27575, Time: 06:00 2. Call to docs office, team to the brigadier, 3. Nadia message overnight - has finished phase 1 hardware reassemble (6 hours) moving onto phase 2 - authentication keys (3 hours), then onto data extract & transmit today (half a day) Marius sends a well done. comms are patchy 4. brigadiers room - private escort. having breakfast, so you're hear finally - you've seen what is going on? Kai - no, your men have been very good, not revealing. 5. B - confirms that he called for help, Moscow not sent anything, we're stuffed 6. K - we've done some stuff in the infirmary 7. B - so what can you do to help, outside normal channels 8. K - moral, looking at local agents, working on threats and abilities, we've warded one vehicle, will do more, clear the spirits away. 9. B - approved. A - wards will be temp, until Moscow 10. K - have Moscow responded at all. 11. B - deep breath. Isn't one of your plans time sensitive 12. A - need sharpshooters, stuff in the woods. but need height. 13. B - calls ops - plan approved, as are any future plans for foreseeable future. 14. B - story about pushing in, mounting casualties, lowering ammo, pulls back, political bullshit. 15. K - ok, we'll go and get on with stuff. 16. A - you want us to report in to you. 17. B - no, act first, report later - trust, 18. A - when did this happen? 19. B - harried back, accidents, intensified since they came back. 20. A - yakut operatives, not spirits 21. B - treason, one of the things the people will not stand for, political suicide 22. T - explains about shape earth 23. B - I want my engineer to work with you - chat about voluntary stuff, strength 24. B - calls in the private (Tollovy) - assigns an attaché, 25. K - all out to chat to Brigadier. Asks if he wants anything done personally, right hand man has medical treatment, 26. B - anything you can do to help is appreciated. K - anything you're worried about. B - no - just deal with the spirits. 27. Private takes them to briefing room 2b to meet the snipers 28. In the hanger, vehicle screeches in with the dayshift+takes away nightshift - funny looks, not sure what to do 29. Hunter says he needs a warded truck for getting around. 30. Back to briefing room. Snipers there, most of them recognised, Aswon - pre mission briefing. Explains about spirits, small vs big, if you can see them you can kill them. You can wipe out the small ones, we'll work out the plan for the big ones. Russians muttering "oh no, we have to stay in the hq" Chief - we can go to the roof. Aswon, no, too exposed. From a window on the top floor. 31. Magic background checks - Aswon - ward a tent frame to let them go onto the roof. 32. K - ask would a mindlink spell work for allowing astral vision. Tads - yes, but sustaining, low range, limited target numbers. Aswon - easier to sort via radio, might do for warnings. Not recommend it. 33. Discussion about mind link, working at range, doesn't have to be on tads. Tads mentions bonding foci for mindlink to allow talking to engineer for tunnelling - and also useful in the future. Have 4 X sniper teams of 4. 34. Aswon - what are the priorities then - snipers are getting ready, 35. Kai - mortar teams next. Marius asks for retrieval on condor. K - then some warded vehicles. 36. Tads - asks about tunnels, only she can do that. Rest doing the vehicles - 37. Chief engineer (vordok), slightly dishevelled, a bit put out by Kai saying "this is your boss", how do you make magic tunnels. Duh - with magic. He points to the wall - show me. Tads makes a hole in the briefing room wall. Existential moment, I need to get all the base plans, will take me a few hours. Tads does the mindlink, he looks petrified. Tads explains more at speed of thought, includes dog legs, no steps ramps only. He wants to go get junior engineers and equipment, will be 2-3 hours. T - warding or foci? K - warding. K>Hunter what ammo do you want? AK, but also wants base armourer to look at extended mags, and can mortars be laser guided. 38. K asks private to warn armour that hunter will come and need support. 39. Team heading to motor pool to ward trucks. 40. Snipers - report in, 6 enemies down, private reports. Aswon - dammit, stand down, get back inside. Aswon runs upstairs, getting a head of steam on. Spotters giving running commentary - people getting back under building. Snipers happy. Kai, hmmm. 41. Two big spirits appear, snipers ask for permission to shoot - Kai, not yet. Aswon - they will go for a while then come back, and we won't be here. Kai gets explanation about what happened. Good, well done. Kai - if you see the small ones, attack, big ones - no, leave them we need to deal with them, actually you will - but in a special way. But give us a radio call if you act. 42. Tads - asks for count on ones killed. Conjuring check for Tads - ideas about power of summoners 43. Wondering about the pair in the woods - the summoners may have moved, may be tipped off. Marius wants vehicles protecting. 44. K - asks private to tell hanger to fuel the bird and rearm it. Bird is topped off, they also ask for MG ammo size. Ammo is slightly wrong size, need alternative breech blocks. Kai leaves decision with Marius. Base has lots of EX-EX but in Russian long. 45. Back at HQ, all magical activity has stopped, disappeared 46. K - tells private, call out, ESSENTIAL travel only - private, reinforced. We'll have vehicles available soon. Aswon - radio to building, be on alert, but NO shooting. 47. Shimazu volunteers to stay with the snipers, while rest go warding. 48. Private comes with team of 3, to infirmary, in tow truck, over to vehicle pool. Aswon on the roof of the vehicle 49. Spot one of the little spirits watching, arse sticking out of a tree. F4. Tads assenses - same signature. Insta banishes. Tads warns that if it was sent to a specific place, they will know the place. 50. Get to motor pool, fail perception check vs stealth 12+ . spot vehicles, apcs, trucks, jeeps and some in progress being fixed, all abandoned. Hunter warns - motor pool is where the captain had his accident - be careful. 51. Tads -essence check, falls in a splot, big smile, like an angel, rising into the air. Aswon jumps in the air dual natured to try and grab her 52. Big hearth spirits meets up with Tads- they send guardians, 53. Call for Shimazu to come join them. 54. Aswon asks Marius to prep drones for flight, suppress the targets in the woods. 55. Spirit combats, all small ones gone after 2nd free spirit 56. Aswon - she only has hours, until she dies. 57. Shimazu sends his spirit off to follow / track Tads spirit. 58. Kai - they might not take her to kill her. Aswon - hopefully not to turn her against us. 59. Marius - stops prepping the drone, getting the bird ready, asks for volunteers, take 3 for door guns and someone good with an AK. Hunter gets everyone strapped in and briefed. Keep port side closed as the ward, enlisted push out. 60. Private picks up Tads body, get into area of cover. 61. Kai - tells private to organise mortar fire on area, bird coming to the vehicle pool. Touch and go, all aboard, heading for the shamen. Aswon looking through the optics. 62. Head for the signs in the woods. Marius checks, spots the signatures, calls out to the team, all briefed in. Int check for Kai - mortar fire has right of way. 63. Bird approaches on strafing run, perfect lineup from Marius, 4 strings of autofire, spot on target. Aswon hears screams of big bear - reports "on target", kai gives the order to fire. Epic mushroom cloud from 10 X 120mmm hex pattern mortar drops. 64. Private calls - no more fire required. 65. Heading NNE looking for spirit. Marius flying at 50kph following along. Private asked to get maps. Crew stressing a bit. Marius has spirit, +1 guarding Tads body. Marius tells his spirit to obey Aswon. 66. Asks spirit to find threat, it does arm pointing. Leads them on. Aswon looks for thread. Hunter watches the Russians trying to sweet talk the guns... 67. Russian volunteers to help, has datajack, trained EWO. 68. Just at the 2 hour mark, Shimazu's spirit coming back, spotted by Aswon, assenses, looks normal. 69. Marius - desolate area, subsistence farming. 70. Slow the craft, spirit gets back in, describes where she is - in a pond under a crystal, with spirits nearby. 71. Aswon - volunteers to DFA, need to get down and carve spirits, 72. Spot the heavy canopy, plan side+rear gunners, coming in on the west, Russians stay with the bird. Keeping Tads on the bird, come in for landing. 73. Marius touch and go, needs reroll, Team lands, first description given - stopping for the night. |
|
|
|
|
Aug 16 2020, 09:41 AM
Post
#124
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Good morning all. This weeks writeup is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57002353742581/
And this week we see one of the strengths, and weaknesses of TTRPGs, and in particular Shadowrun, and super in particular 3rd edition. The 2.5 hours of session can be summarised as “walk through swamp, get to clearing, weird magical cold, 9 seconds of fight, recover bodies, fly home.” And of that, the 9 seconds of fight took up probably about 2 hours… Still, lots of crunch and depth, and that comes with a cost – you can’t have it all ways. In prep for this weeks session, I’d written up a couple of paragraphs of scene setting to read out, rather than just going with the creative flow at the time – wanting to make sure I covered the key points of the environment as the players explored: A - Overview The land in the middle of the river is a sodden quagmire, overgrown with trees where boughs droop into the water and roots are ready to tangle the unwary, a mass of fallen and rotting trees, low lying foliage and thick cloying mud. The area is unspoilt and feels incredibly remote - despite there being villages only a few tens of miles away. The shifting mudflats and banks of earth make it likely that you're the first humans to set foot here. Visibility is limited to a few metres at most amidst the dense trees, whose branches interlink forming a dense canopy above the head apart from the odd spots where a fallen tree creates a column of light that lances down from above. B - Close by The land starts to undulate, rising up and down by about 2 metres in a series of waves, stretching out to either side of you. As you examine the land formation, it's as if something made the ground ripple outwards from a point which lays ahead of you. Some massive impact struck the ground ahead, forcing it to liquefy and ripple outwards like a stone thrown into a pond, then frozen in time as the energy dissipated, leaving the ground as a twisted memory of some unknown event. Rocks and boulders as big as a troll are half buried in the ground, which slowly rises out of the brackish swamp. Stepping forwards, a subtle hiss starts to form over the comms, some kind of interference which gets louder and more pervasive as you move in towards the centre C - The Lagoon A small pond lies at the centre of a clear area, flat and slightly depressed. The water inside is frozen over, a thin sheet of delicate ice showing intricate patterns of swirls and loops. Frost and snow ring the area, and as you enter you can see your breath fogging up, forming a plume from your mouth and nose. About one metre up in the air is a large floating crystal - perhaps half a metre high that spins on its long axis. It seems to radiate an aura of cold and menace, but has no discernible features or markings. Despite that, there's a feeling of being observed by some calculating malevolent entity. Under the crystal, on a half-submerged tree lays the astral form of Tads, laid out with her arms by her side and a faint smile on her face. Despite the stifling heat outside, the temperature in this area must be below zero, the ground frozen and all the plant life dead or dying as if in the midst of a harsh winter. Of course, this helped a little doing the writeup, where I could go through the text and just change the tenses as required! For plot reasons, I needed to get Tads on the “sacrificial altar” near the purple crystal, so it could explode and skewer Kai… so I worked up a custom spirit power called “Homesick” Homesick power - somewhat like desire reflection, but works on astral forms only. Leads the form away from the body, in the belief that it is going "home", with an intense desire to return to a happy place of contentment and safety (an idealised, romanticized Christmas card happy families advertising /commercial kind of place with ruddy cheeks, lots of toys, a full table of food etc). Opposed test, of F+SE versus WP. If the spirit is successful, they can "pull" the astral form out of a body that is astrally perceiving, luring it away. If the astral form is kept away from its body long enough to die, the spirit can feed upon it's psychic death scream at the point of expiration, immediately gaining Essence rating of the mage in good karma So – very nice for the spirit as a way to probably earn 6 karma – of course I wasn’t actually planning for this to happen, but I wanted there to be an effect and if it happened because the team messed up – then so be it. No risk, no reward! As it happened, Kai positioned himself perfectly for the actual plot device, meaning that the lovely shard of exploded crystal could penetrate his heart, and give him his “unique plot item” – though he doesn’t know about this yet. Kai got a private message with the following description – which he as a player chose NOT to share with the rest of the players, leading to the flurry of assensing and keeping him covered with weapons at the end of the session: Kai briefing: There's a flash of power, and then darkness around you. A coldness grows around your heart, spreading into your chest and making your flesh cool and contract. A darkness calls and whispers to you, offering you material wealth, riches beyond the dream of avarice - but the voice sounds slick and full of cunning. You recognise the same power you wield to command your foes, trying to work against you. Guarded, you fight against the temptation, and the voice shrieks with anger in your mind. Your will clashes against the interloper, and you drive it back, stripping the power from the being. You're about to expel it from your body, when with a start you peel away what feels like the outer shell - and discover the source or font of the power, and find it pure and unadulterated. The power leeches out of the core and suffuses your body, adapting to your will and conforming to your ethos and morals - for good or ill. The death cry of the intruder fades as you steal the source of its power and it fades away to nothing but a distant echo. So, that’s two players equipped with their “specials” – Aswon has his spear, and Kai has his soul crystal. Two down, four to go… the aim is over the course of the coming year of in game time for the others to each receive their special doofah, getting something that will boost them up in a particular way and let them face down some major challenges, whilst still having weaknesses that they need the rest of the team to cover. At least that’s the plan. It’s been an interesting exercise coming up with some unique, flavoursome powers, trying to balance between the group and giving them something that should really make them feel they have something interesting and meaningful. Anyway – that’s enough of a glimpse into the future, back to the present (unless people actually want to hear more about what is planned?) Here are the notes from the session, as usual: 1. Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 53.38042, 50.27575, Time: 09:34 2. Perception checks: Aswon 14, Kai 11, Shimazu 11, Hunter 22 3. Shimazu spirit following the trail, Marius orbiting, all fail perception checks (not enough successes, they all got a plenty high target number on one die, but then a handful of crap with the rest!), moving forwards 4. Aswon listens - gets 2 successes, unnatural stillness. 5. Marching order - Shimazu, Kai+Aswon, Hunter, rough diamond formation 6. Shimazu loses a boot. Takes the other one off. Aswon goes to the trees, jump with gecko crawl, new stealth 11 7. Move in, Marius boosts flux and activates ECCM, asks Russian, blanket effect, seen before, 8. Roll initiative on getting to clearing and being spotted by bears (having been observed by birds under control pack from the shaman – which none of them spotted…) 9. Marius fails to spot clearing, confused by alarm call, 10. Shimazu moves east, Aswon moves west, bears have spotted them and are closing, Hunter moves into hard cover, granite boulder 11. Aswon spots tiger to the rear, closing on Hunter and Kai, Shimazu spots summoning, Kai runs forward with taser, 9, shoots summoner hits, fails to dodge, soaks the L overflow, takes the D stun 12. Marius loses contact with Kai, break in carrier wave 13. Shimazu draws pistol to shoot 2nd summoner, summoner dodges, boom reverberates, but is dampened, back to sword 14. Tiger leaps at Shimazu, surprises him, tiger attacks, Shimazu hits net 3, does an S 15. Tiger closes on hunter, 1 round of overwatch, fires 6 round burst, 3 successes, takes a deadly, goes down 16. Draw sword and prepare to behead tiger 17. Kai closes on bear, tases, 3 success, moderate stun, 2nd shot, 1 success, bad soak, takes M, S+M now 18. Summoner 6 summons F4 with 2 successes, go confuse 19. Marius fails perception check again, Shimazu falls off comm net as well 20. Shimazu charges bear, attunement, solid hit on bear, 8 net successes, bear fails, takes a D 21. Marius spots a mirage, gets a steer in, 22. Shimazu - hits bear, 13v6, bear takes a serious, 23. Aswon charges Bear, drops off comms, 10vs3, takes a D, drops, 24. Tiger charges Hunter, beats by 1, 9m, soaked ok, knockdown test fine 25. Hunter sword attack, tiger wins, 9s, soaks to a L with 1 good karma, platelet factory to zero 26. Tiger attacks Shimazu, loses by 1, takes 9m, moderate 27. Bear attacks Shimazu, takes a Serious, drops, down 28. Kai shoots tiger on shimazu, drops it with a d, no soak, taser out of charge, drops 29. Summoners spirit - confuses Kai, successfully 30. Shimazu decapitates Bear - everything hits, no 1s 31. Aswon pulls grenade and throws grenade at Shaman, falls short by 9m, cracks the ice 32. Marius starts to plot the null zone - 1 success 33. Shimzu decaps tiger - mostly good. 34. Shimazus targets stay down, Aswon and Hunter up 35. 3rd round 36. Marius plots another data point, Aswon stabs for an S, Shimazu run for Hunter, Tiger attacks Hunter, tiger takes an L, Hunter drops sword and pulls up rifle, 3 round burst, does D, tiger D, Aswon stabs bear on its goes, does D, 37. Marius gets inside dome with tilt wing, Aswon hits the summoner with a Moderate throwing knife, Shimazu decapitates tiger, Hunter covers tiger with 38. Free spirit arrives, purple crystal to tads, 39. Marius brings tilt wing in, crash test, manages to recover from ice, shouts at the Russians to drop the spirit/crystal 40. Aswon and Shimazu - dodge test - Aswon all in, plenty, Shimazu the same, 41. Kai gets sploded. Magical bubble goes, starts to steam as ice melts, Tads awakens, Kai knocked prone 42. Aswon points tads at the tilt wing, sprints for shaman, Hunter recovers sword, chases Aswon, Shimazu aims for kia, comms return, Hunter warns Marius one target still up 43. Shimazu spots million needle wounds, one big one over the heart 44. Marius locks on to shaman, door gunners take him down, 45. Shimazu does first aid, seals the wound, pressure pad. 46. Aswon finds sacrificed #5, definitely blood magic +sacrifice metamagic 47. Aswon +Shimazu spot the spirit hiding under Kai stab it, it dies 48. Check the corpses, golden sickle, small herb bag, Russian peasant dress. 49. Kai - have we rescued Tads. Yes, just having a rest she says. Kai asks for check on the pond, 50. Recover the 4 shapeshifter corpses, Aswon audio - nature coming back. 51. Aswon - where are the spirits? One in the vortex, where is the other? 52. Aswon looks for crystal fragments - no remains. 53. Get all the shifter bodies, all back on the tilt wing, head back to samara 54. Aswon thinks about the crystal - possibly a gate, unique enchantment, lots of power 55. All check Kai, assenses, changed astral signature. Trying to work out what is going on. More investigation - just like he's initiated. 56. Aswon - Kai, did you mean to do that? Kai - I think I did... Tads - he didn't trigger the wards coming into the chopper. Aswon - what do you mean you wanted to? Kai - I think I did - it was like I told myself I wanted to, there was a voice in the darkness. Aswon - never seen that happen unless anyone wanted it to. 57. Hunter - what has it changed? and what to? 58. Aswon explains, like a fingerprint. Hunter - good or bad. Aswon - doesn't work like that. Hunter checks with Marius how long to get back, 90 mins. Drinks and celebrations for the Russians. 59. Tads resummons spirits, asks to be bought up to speed. Aswon tells the story. 60. Asks Tads what she remembers. 61. Shimazu checks Tads out - nothing wrong 62. Hunter asks ASwon if this all needs to be done privately - Aswon says no. 63. Shimazu checks Kai again - definitely different but still Kai 64. Get back to base, Tads spots the crater, ooh, nasty. Do a sweep, no astral entities, no sign of life in the crater. 65. Aswon thinks the spirit that went into the vortex, was the corrupted hearth spirit. 66. Kai asks if the spirit might have left the astral signature from the spellcasting - probably faded due to time. 67. Back to base, recover the condor, make notes of who the Russians were. 68. Kai asks for watcher spirits to act as tripwires for the base. Physical enemies 2 Shapeshifter Bears - B7, Q5, S8, C2, I4, W4, R4, Init 2D6+4, CP6, Attack 8S+1Reach, Armour 3/3 2 Shapeshifter Tigers - B5, Q7, S6, C2, I5, W4, R6, Init 3D6+6, CP8, Attack 9M rake, Armour 2/2 Summoner 1 - 4/6 stats, R5, Init 1D6+5, CP8, 4M Stun, 3/3, Aspected conjurer, Invoking, (G3) Summoner 2 - 4/6 stats, R5, Init 1D6+5, CP8, 4M Stun, 3/3, Aspected conjurer, Invoking, Centering (G4) Astral enemies Two free spirits, stats below Bekorat: Free Toxic Hearth Spirit, Force 6, Spirit energy 3, (Homesick, Hidden Life, Human Form) Zoltuka: Free Wind Spirit Force 6, Spirit energy 3,(Dispelling, Sorcery, Animal Form) Spell list: Blizzard (Force X damage, +1,DL+2, knockdown test vs F of spell, seeping cold, +2 power v Fire based), Ice sheet (P,4,I, LOS, +2M - Q vs F or fall / crash test - +1 TN per 2 success to F), Decrease Reaction (M, 10-E,S,LOS, +3D) The entity - a pulsating crystal shard, spinning and floating about 1m in the air, radiating a cold aura for several metres around. Will cast lightning at 4L, using 4 dice, every turn until destroyed. Has 10/10 armour, and soaks with 8 dice. (They never got onto the pond to approach the crystal, so never triggered the attacks from the crystal, and I cut the 2nd spirit based on the time, wanting to try and get the fight done in the night – he’ll turn up later looking for some vengeance at a really inopportune moment for the players.) |
|
|
|
|
Aug 24 2020, 08:50 PM
Post
#125
|
|
|
Wordsmith Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 404 Joined: 21-June 10 From: Leeds, UK Member No.: 18,740 |
Good evening everyone – sorry, a bit of a late one due to a busy weekend. Only finished writing up a little while ago, and then it needed to be checked for cruelty to apostrophes and sanity checked for silly mistakes by my lovely wife (who catches a good 99.5% of them) – but the episode is now live and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57019504392581/
A bit of drama at the base, the political fallout of the Brigadier pulling his unit back earlier than Moscow wanted when he ran out of the “shapeshifter-killer” bullets, because he didn’t want to lose men in a doomed fight. That was completely unexpected for the team, and they were just gearing up with that when the second punch came in – the unexpected development of latent magical powers from one of the soldiers, throwing a spanner in the works. How they dealt with that was up to them, and they decided to take the soldier with them for education / training, so we have an NPC in the team again. Well, if anyone dies, they can take over playing him until they work up a new character concept! Just as they were starting to get back on an even keel, I threw the next development at them, getting them to go after the other free spirit that had been attacking them, and dragging them 3500km east. They’re now pretty close to Mongolia and the east coast, and this is the furthest they’ve ever been away from their base I believe. The actual job here is going to be pretty simple, but at the end of that job, there’s a call to come in with a mission that will take them to Japan for a very lucrative deal – hopefully an offer they can’t refuse. After all, it’s now closer for them to get to Japan than it is to get back home… As usual, here are the bullet points for the run, based on the notes taken during the session. Mostly faithful to the events this week, just a little detail in the planning glossed over at times either because I can’t make accurate notes fast enough of who said what to whom, or because the players were coming up with some crazy crazy plans… 1. Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 53.38042, 50.27575, Time: 14:07 2. at the aircraft in the hanger, having recovered the drone and summoned watchers 3. aswon - so what happened boss. Kai - experiences are very different I'm sure 4. don't be evasive, what happened when you were zoned out? 5. big explosion, got very dark, felt something in my chest, clammy and cold, whispering voices, kinda like me convincing people to do stuff, any of you weak minded fools would have fallen for it (group huffs), fought against it, peeled back what it was hiding, not sure if it was it, or the source, but it leaked a bit, but then it didn't do anything, not sure it went into me or anything. A - so you peeled it? K - yeah, bit weird, not something I'd like to do again. 6. Aswon thinks - like wrangling a pact as opposed to a possession. Let us know if anything weird happens - you've got a hole in your chest that should keep you on your ass 7. Meh - coming from the man who talks to his blood sucking spear! 8. Banter back and forth about payment 9. Shimazu - so I need to keep an eye on him? Aswon - yes, you do, with what you do. 10. Aswon - one spirit in the void, looked scared, other one who knows where 11. Tads - who's was the spirit confusing kai? Aswon, one of the shamans, Tads - shouldn't it have gone free? Aswon, maybe, maybe not, might have just been carrying out the last instruction. 12. Kai - did the craft get damaged, take any damage to wards? No. How about drones 13. Marius gives price for a 41 not a 23, so 35K ish 14. Check around the hanger to make sure it's ok, then head to the brigade area 15. Hunter wanting to upgrade the troops guns, Aswon says no - better fire discipline, learning when not to shoot, Hunter - no, my ideas are not for the snipers, Aswon - the gunners blew away the last shaman, so we couldn't question them 16. Look at hanger size, think about warding, all get together and head for the main base. Aswon stands between tads and the mortar splosions. 17. Brigade on parade, Brigadier there, Captain on crutches. Aswon assenses, very bad mood, some anger, Tads checks - rising background count. 18. One guy in dark green, troops in BDU, only ones armed. Vadim trying to do a hatchet job on the brigadier, troops not buying. 19. Check out the captain, he's very wobbly, not fit for duty, rising rage. A dozen guards, 6 on either side 20. Looking at the troops it's *only* the brigade, no base personnel, 21. Armed guards spot them, turn, on alert, Kai salutes, Interrogator - "these people aren't even in the military, not sworn to obey the rodina etc etc, bring them here", team start to move in. stopped by the podium, Elite Guards (EG) look unhappy about the armed status, stopped on lower ground. Shimazu psychology, classic power play. 22. Kai salutes, Kuzma screeches "silence, you don't get to speak, don't salute, you're not military" Goes onto rant about who the people are, polluting your minds, despoiling your training, that one looks like a witch! 23. Caster throws a 2D stunbolt, starts to bleed, 24. EG go mental, get on your knees, some cover the brigade, brigade surge forward a little. Brigadier makes a stopping motion. Tads makes a beeline to the new caster, troops shout at her to stop. Stop or we'll fire! 25. Tads - I'm the only one who can deal with this. 26. Kai goes to EG, we're going to deal with the spirit. Has reroll, gets plenty 27. One guy goes to shoot Tads - Kai "drop your weapon!" He does. 28. Kai makes a scene to "get the spirit", getting anyone on the team to follow his lead, team does show and tell 29. Tads, gets permission, for man to fall out from his sergeant, he says Da 30. Hunter advises over comms - tell the doc to keep idiot sedated. 31. Kai tells the one that nearly shot tads "well done, you fought off the spirit, and didn't obey its orders to shoot the woman" 32. EG guys leave with Minin, heading for the infirmary 33. Kai asks the brigadier if he wants the spirits killing, brigadier "yes, get the last one." 34. Tads checks the new caster over, not sure on totem but is shamanic 35. UAZ comes over with radio message, shouts to make the captain sit down 36. Tads take the caster over to the forest edge. 37. Iktusk, magical assault, alert, sounds like big spirit 38. Brigadier says he might be able to help, wait 30, will advise 39. Kai offers to go do some smiting. Tads asks for the trooper to be seconded. Kai relays. Hunter advises using modified. Aswon explains between manifest and materialised. Aswon does explain that the big spirit may be back. Hunter says the inspector "may be possessed" 40. Brigadier explains he can take care of Inspector Minin, he's made calls to Moscow. He brings up a map to show the team. "What is the range on the vehicle" Hunter answers 1500km. 41. Tads asks for magical support - brigadier - no you don't, you're a hero, stand up straight 42. Hunter plots route, works out its possible, 7 hours flight, 43. Team, agree to go? Yes. Hunter wants to stop for breech blocks, rest of team overrule him, get ready to lift off in 20 mins, 44. Get 2 bottles of wine from the brigadiers store to take as proof that Vasiliy sent them. 45. Team resupplied, ammo, food, clothing, 46. Captain is sent back to the infirmary with troops forcibly 47. Tads gets Vadim to grab some gear, come with them. 48. Give a code to get identify as a spetnasz flight, down the TSR corridor, code is time limited 49. Get ready for take off, worried about the base and how to defeat the spirit. Aswon and Kai talking, Aswon talking about accidental damage and banishing, and the time limit. 50. Team discuss again ramming the spirit and using the wards to batter it. Small arms fire? Marius *unhappy* 51. Kai calls Ludmilla, can we use the fuel stop, sure, when will you be at the dam, double take, no tara, sure then, 52. Head for Tara, military escort some of the way, clear skies and smooth flying, 3 hours flight time. 53. Talk about mind probing the spirit to get its true name - Aswon unsure. Tads very unsure - bit it up a bit, then mind probe. Get Kai to use commanding voice "what's your name" - easier mind probe. 54. Hunter asks, can't we just delay it, and make it the Russians problem? They explain that no, they need to deal with it to keep the Russians on side, the spirit not pissed with them etc. 55. Magic 101 instruction on the flight, one success on instruction. Totem is wolverine. berserk chance 56. team warn him about danger of the upcoming fight 57. train him up on the MMG (starboard), and on spell defence 58. Red army investigator: Kuzma Minin, 1.95m, thin, sneering, really bad acne and teeth, 59. Pagan worshipper: Vadim Yakovlev, manifests power stunbolt 60. Tara airport fuel stop is a go. 61. Land at Nova, lots of troops, brief into the Colonel, introduced to the Captain. Where's the lady 62. Handshake, heads back to the vehicle. 63. 19:00 ish 64. Fuel up and head further east, uneventful journey |
|
|
|
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 13th April 2022 - 04:22 PM |
Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.