[X] My Assistant

[Kren Cooper]

Smuggler session 147 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57030441737581/
This week, the team got introduced to the Irkutsk area and the large Russian military presence here, and started to piece together pieces of the puzzle. This time the Russians do have some mages – but they’re grossly outnumbered, and the enemy are being smart and playing to their strengths, fighting a hit and run campaign of terror, and targeting the Russian casters. Of course, a couple of grade 5 initiates are going to tip the balance of power considerably, and through a spanner in the works of the Yakut forces.
I’m also faced with a conundrum. You see, I’d looked at the map, a quick cursory glance and gone “hmm – huge lake, river, city by the river… plot plot plot. Ohh look, a much larger area to the north. What if the Yakut forces had dammed the river, flooding a large part of their lands – they’d be ok with that. And they have lots of spirits and such like. That would slow the river to a crawl, and we can foreshadow that in passing. And the players can investigate, and discover the plan at the last minute, maybe even as the dam is blown. Then we can have a “desperate race against time” kinda thing, fighting the military bureaucracy to get people moving. If they mess it up, the river bursts the banks, and floods / destroys several of the regiments and cripples the Russian forces, making the Yakut forces stronger. If they succeed, then the Russians escape to higher ground, through the city is still trashed, but the Yakut forces won’t then be able to invade and push through to the trans-Siberian railroad and cut off the entire far-east area. Either way the players will be fine, and can escape in their chopper, but they could be involved in a major socio-political upheaval. Great, that sounds juicy, awesome.”
Then. I looked at the map again.
Shit.
Double shit.
The water drains OUT of lake Baikal, past the town, along the best part of 2000km of river and drains into the Arctic Ocean. It’s flowing the wrong fracking way!
So, a drastic rethink of the plot is required.
Option 1 – they’ve been expanding the area where I originally had them working, creating vast sumps, which has artificially lowered the river level. The campaign of fire-bombing the town is to tie up the mages, and they’ve had earth spirits “hardening” the exposed banks of the river, making them impervious to water and closing them in. When the wet weather comes in the autumn, the river will definitely flood then, which might have the same effect – just less dramatically.
Option 2 – it has actually just been a long hot dry summer here, and the river level is low, just by co-incidence. But the Yakut forces are going to strike at the Ikustk dam. This 50m high, 2km wide dam is responsible for over half a gigawatt of electrical generation, so taking that down will darken not only the city, but a good chunk of the surrounding area. There would also be the massive flood I was after, potentially washing away several regiments and trashing the city – just it would take minutes to hit the city, instead of an hour. Ok – that works. When they built the Irkutsk dam, it actually raised the water level in Lake Baikal by 1.4m – which is a ridiculous level in something over 600km and 75km wide. A total of 138,600 hectares of land were inundated by the reservoir, forcing 200 communities and 17,000 people to relocate. So that is a LOT of water to suddenly get filtered down the river.
Option 2a) They’re doing it all as a plot to strike at the troops in the city, and that’s end goal enough.
Option 2b) They’re doing it to create a massive surge / tidal wave to affect the lake as a whole. Apparently due to the size of the lake (it’s the largest by volume in the world, and deepest – over a mile deep with about 5 miles of sediment at the bottom!) they get waves up to 14 feet high during storms – if they blew the dam during a storm, you could get mammoth waves roaring down the lake, like a tsunami (ok, I don’t know if you could actually get that – I’m not a hydrologist, but it sounds faintly plausible, and it’s my sci-fi channel disaster movie, ok? Ok.) That could not only wreck the Yakut civil war / guerrilla movement by White Rock, on the shores of Baikal, but could also trash the land to the southern edge, including the railroad – which again serves the purpose of cutting off the entire Russian far east from resupply / easy access.
Option 4) the river flows down into the lake now, stick with the original plan. Maybe there was an eruption during the crash / VITAS / sometime pre-present day, that moved things on a geological scale, creating a new flow for the river, reversing the previous course and draining a new area of Siberia down into the Baikal. Least favourite option I think.
I’m tempted to go with the dam being blown to strike at the city, indicating a major offensive push from the Yakut forces, and hopefully indicating to the players that things are going to get really exciting here – and encourage them to head off on the next mission when it’s presented, rather than being caught in an active warzone – especially one where the enemy is super strong magically and their stealth ship doesn’t matter anywhere near as much. That means I can have Hunter if he does some research get a paraphrased copy of the Wikipedia article on the Teton Dam failure in the US from the 70s. There a higher, but shorter, dam failed as the reservoir was being filled, releasing 57,000m3 of water per second down into the Snake River Plains. It killed 14 people, over 13,000 livestock, destroyed several towns and cities, and caused the government to pay out over 300 million US dollars for claims from the dam failure, lasting well into the 80s.

As usual, here are the notes from the session – a little shorter than normal it seems:
1. Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 52.30972, 104.20729, Time: 22:19
2. Coming in to land, description of area, some smouldering, some cold ash, overview of area.
3. UAZ waiting for them,
4. Mood in the city is frightened, fraught, under siege.
5. Colonel says to go with him, calls in a rifle platoon to guard the bird,
6. Tads asks if Vadim wants to come - he wants to stay in the bird and guard, not go near the Lt Gen. Tads shows him the prism, asks him to report.
7. Marius staying on board, inform the colonel that people are still onboard.
8. Aswon assenses troops - active engagement area, not scared, but wary. Aswon thinks less scared than back at the base.
9. Into the Hotel Royal, bodyguards don't want to let them in with weapons. Hunter stays with the guns, rest go. Power out, have to walk, to 3rd floor, power out due to recent attacks, engineers working on. Power not being attacked deliberately, as a side result of the fires. They do have mages, but overwhelmed.
10. Ahh welcome - Vasiliy speaks highly of you. Kai hands note over - raised eyebrow, pass to colonel. so what do you need, what do I need to know.
11. Kai - we need info, on what is going on.
12. Lt Gen - send for Frederick, Frunze calls,
13. detail story about attacks, ramping up for last 2 week, overwhelming odds.
14. Aswon warns about the free spirit, and that is what the team is dealing with, not the general attacks.
15. Kai asks if anything has changed - Lt Gen, says no not really - though getting ready for a major push.
16. Aswon - thinks they have insurgents, rats in the pipe.
17. Kai asks about wards - mostly around HQ and armoury
18. Down to 1st floor meeting room, get guns back. Ask colonel if they need to clear action first - he would prefer, but not essential.
19. Ask about counter insurgency training, generally don't have any,
20. Ask about river, told river level is very low this summer, have no naval assets
21. Kai asks about river/seasonal stuff, asks for recon - thinks it could be yakut moving forces, or could be a natural phenomenon. Asks for recon, maybe satellite.
22. Hunter - talks about flood wave.
23. Aswon asks if high points have been checked, no - mages spread too thin. Aswon suggest tads go with,
24. Tads wants a map and a mage to accompany her once she's checked them out.
25. Ask Captain Frederick for a spare mage. Ask for someone who knows the city, recommend one of the engineers,
26. Watcher spirit through the wall, "they're back, they're back", leads them outside
27. Out in the street, pall of black smoke, shields +SD up, astral perception,
28. All spot F5 wind spirit, Aswon goes active, Shimazu rolls bodyguarding for looking after fred (ok), Aswon suggests Hunter looks for dodgy civilians, Hunter goes high.
29. Tads asks if drone sensor package can be swapped to VTOL - no not really.
30. 18-20 watchers scream through the air, Shimazu - terror tactics,
31. Tads goes nuclear with F4 stunball cast at M, with 10 successes. drops 18, Aswon goes for the kill on #19, but Shimazu steals the kill, tads cleanses spell,
32. Tads asks Marius to look for non-military radio signals
33. Hunter spots Alsatian at about 300m, maybe 25% bigger than normal. 5 round burst. Shoots the dog, cuts it in half.
34. Marius scans frequencies - lots of encrypted cell traffic, some radio, lots of military stuff. Tries to break encryption - succeeds, breaks encryption 2, with 3 successes.
35. Dog gets back up and sprints off, Hunter drops it again, knocks it over and out of LOS.
36. Hunter staying on the roof,
37. Aswon and Shimazu running, both get to Q10, get about 30s clear of the main group, round the corner
38. Spot the owl shifter, call it in, dog crawling away, Shimazu goes to taser the owl - misses. It launches and kills the dog, then banks south. Aswon calls a warning, hunter fires a snap burst as it clears the fence, smashes it to the ground with an S.
39. Aswon and Shimazu go to check on the dog - appears dead.
40. Kai going for the owl, looks - can't find the owl, can find blood splatters and fragments, searches astrally,
41. Tads asks the colonel to take the dog back to base, Kai hears whimpers of pain and cries of alarm, Kai moves to back door, Aswon over the top, Shimazu round the side,
42. Kai opens the back door - man holding bread knives to 2 girls throat, commanding voice, drop it, he does, girls bolt, Kai tases, overflows to M, drops like a sack of spuds, Hunter reaction check, owl escapes, flies up, takes a burst, manages 1 soak+1 buy , makes 1 on the knockdown, then gets tased by Kai, drops, no soak,
43. Team converge - Aswon secures the bird, Shimazu talks to the girl (barely), Kai biotechs the dad ok,
44. Checks the owl - recovering shapeshifter soon, girl is just girl. Aswon calls for mind probe / tads ASAP.

[Kren Cooper]

Good evening everyone – and welcome to episode 148, which can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57049368712581/
Late update this week, courtesy of network outages. Pesky deckers crashing my systems. *shakes fist*. A little rushed after work and gym tonight, trying to get things published before gaming tomorrow night, but hopefully the narrative still flows ok.
After capturing the Owl shifter and interrogating them, the players realised that things were coming to a head, plans were afoot, and some serious shenanigans were taking place – and just at the exact moments they were in town! What are the odds….
Initially I wondered if they were going to just let the army handle the assault – but in the end, they strapped on their hero pants and dived in there. They weren’t expecting the deadman-charge, but rolled with that, found the bomb and then started to sweat. I probably gave a better description to the players in game than I did in the narrative, as I wanted to make it abundantly clear that this was a “difficult” challenge. Marius was up first, and blew a bunch of rerolls and good karma on the issue, defeating the anti-tamper and clearing the way for Aswon to do some fancy demolitions work. Unfortunately, Aswon was very low on Karma – both good and pool, and didn’t have a great roll – so rather than a clean disarm, he was one success under the threshold (but not a botch by any stretch of the imagination!) So, they got gassed, and had to flee the building, taking 6M no armour damage, and a bunch of modifiers regardless to make them feel under pressure. But I wasn’t too worried, as I had the colonel calling in the NBC troops and the medics, so they wouldn’t be out of action for long. Hopefully though it will remind them that without backup, they would have been up shit creek!
So, having dealt with that, we’re on the home stretch – Yakut is poised for the attack, and the players will hopefully be instrumental in turning the battle against them by stopping their sabotage – giving the Russians a huge morale boost and setting the initial motions in play for the Russian reclamation of a large chunk of Siberia. Not that they’ll see that – they’ll hopefully be off on the next mission!
Of course, with Kai leading the team, *anything* could happen, so we’ll just have to see how that goes.

As usual, here are the notes from the game, along with the stats / characters / descriptions…
Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 52.30972, 104.20729, Time: 23:50
• Interrogation of the owl shifter - Tads gets 4 successes
• Mind probe successes:
•

1. There are 6 cells operating in the city, the other 5 are unknown to this cell
2. • Each cell has one owl+ one dog shifter, and up to half a dozen local sympathisers or "normal" humans. Their main MO is the firestorm, though explosions or electrical/water sabotage are also used. They have a poison due to go off in the water pumping station tomorrow, that is already placed.
3. • This cell covers the centre of the city, and is targetting any building they can set fire to - there are no specific targets or objectives, beyond destruction and fear, sowing terror and keeping the army off balance. Their attacks have been escalating and "something big" is due to happen in 2 days time.
4. • There is a cadre of 6 summoners located to the north, behind Yakut lines who summon the watchers, sending them down in a pack for the shifters to direct. Each cell will get a flock to use, augmented by the owls own spirits. All the attacks *must* stay in the city, not anywhere else.
5. • The timeline indicates that the main attack is due to occur at 02:00, darkness is a key part of the plan. Additional units are coming south, over the water to enter the city to do whatever it is.
6. • A major assault is planned after whatever the strike team does, and the cells are to continue to cause chaos while Yakut forces drive south to sieze the city, and the railroad beyond.

• Aswon - sounds like an army issue (water plant) - they can ID the people from the job
• Hunter - surely we need to go back to the general, and update him? Aswon - Frunze can do that.
• Tads - if we crack another cell, will they know any more?
• Kai - we might want to do the water ourselves, the army will spook them, we can maybe get more info with a stealthy approach? Talk about can we tase it or trank it - army have no tranks normally
• Aswon - the army will torture it for info, and we'll be a lot more merciful.
• Kai - remembers he has prison governer contact nearby who may be able to help
• Kai wants to keep authority over the owl, Aswon - the army will want to kill it.
• Kai asks tads for a quick astral scout. Tads checks with Fred that he got the spirit - he confirms. Tads checks - BGC at the burnt house, otherwise clear. Tads - there will be more watchers coming in soon
• Ask for a warded room - directed to the 105th LSB HQ tent, they will clear people out.
• Get there F3 wards, into the emptied tent, all confidential materials removed.
• Kai tells it to shut up, using harsh tone of voice.
• Kai tells the colonel about the water poison, owl goes mad, struggles, tries to get out, shimazu can hold.
• Kai tases it, overflows to M, soak to L, owl is twitched,
• Get info 5+6, info flow is by dead drop, slow but secure. 11 successes - get all the info on the cell, locations, dead drops, next cell meeting,
• Aswon - tactics thoughts, Yakut will go big or go home, but fear heavy return fire. Ward a few fast moving vehicles and let the russian mages do spotting, and call for fire
• Check time - main attack in 36 hours, poison in 0-23 hours. Aswon suggests cutting off all the water in the area.
• Kai - can we get russian uniforms
• Tads - magic check - reproduce images from the mind probe - only average, standard photofit style.
• Tads mindlinks Frunze refuses, Frederick ok - full brief, Fred asks for help warding a vehicle.
• Tads does impression of the pond - does much better, pass over to the terrain analysts
• Marius - has ID'd about 12 cells that are swapping coded transmissions - passed over the info to the sig-int battallion.
• Frunze asks - are you going to deal with this poison thing? Aswon, can you get us a rigged vehicle?
• Kai calls Mihail the Renraku prison admin. "I'm not buying" - I'm not selling, how are you. "Confused", We're working with the russians, legit. Asks what it is - shapeshifter? Oh yes, get me clearance, there in 20-30 minutes. Asks Govener if he wants anything - alcohol that isn't vodka. Ahh, tricky, what about truffles.
• 12:45, renraku arrives with mage cell, take the shifter
• Vadim comes with, have a LWB UAZ with HMG on the top pintle, rigged for Marius.
• 1.65km, 5 mins drive,
• Tads asks what she needs to get in - colonel, I have no idea, I'm not an engineer
• Hunter engineering checks - likely layout, good results. Aswon chemisty - good results. Probably involves chlorine/flourine disabled, then something with contact vector as well.
• Power is on in the. Colonel asked to get water engineer on the line - stays in the vehicle to co-ordinate.
• Watcher spirits scout - find 3 people, rats and spiders, then detail that yes one of the cell members is in there in the main hall. Wind spirit searching for the powder, not come back (still searching)
• Team swap to regular / hollow points. Tads advises colonel there is a target in, he asks then to neutralise with extreme prejudice.
• Aswon plans a pincer, but decide to pile in.
• Aswon+Hunter, Kai+Tads, Shimazu guards the big doors, Marius in the vehicle.
• In, description of the building, Kai has one shot left in his taser, stealth in - not heard,
• Kai shoots, 5 successes, drop him like a fish, dead mans switch goes off, he is chunky salsa,
• Hunter - nah, that's a grenade blast, hunter does a sniff, chemical analysis, normal stuff,
• Message from Johanna - mission cancelled, found another team.
• Other workers look surly - name drop the russian LT General, they drop their wrenches and back away.
• Get the workers over to examine where he had been working for the last 6-8 hours
• Workers spot the device, go to touch - commanding voice to stop. Chlorine disconnected, horrible complicated device added. Spot 30 minute countdown.
• Try to get water cut off, that's in a different building feeds into here
• Detail about the bomb - Marius tries E B/R, double reroll, gets 1, buys 3 - gets that off safely
• Electronics test, fails, RR again, buys 3, total 4
• Aswon, fails, rr, fails, spends 1 karma, gets one success, partial fail.
• Aswon, 6M soak, no armour, takes a hit.
• Tads uses the spirit to blow the aerosol back away from the team.
• Outside - colonel with drawn pistol, MPs arriving, all stagger out, Hunter +Kai take L, Marius / Tads M
• Teams roll biology / botony / parabotony - atropine like, need to strip
• Hunter and marius start to strip, as does Aswon and Kai. Colonel calls in the 2nd NBC protection regiment
• Sirens start to sound all over the city - echoing around.
• Tads self heals, units starts to arrive, Tads moves to help Marius, casts, fails.
• scrubbed clean by NBC teams, about 15 mins elapsed, 2nd wave. - Tads takes an L,


Water plant
poison canister attached to the water inlet for the central area, on a timer and with several anti-tamper devices
Needs an electronics B/R (6) test with 3 successes to get the case off, without setting off the 1st anti-tamper charge, which causes 12D chemical explosive, -2/m
Needs an electronics (6) test with 3 successes to disable the electronic timer without setting off the 2nd anti-tamper, sparking a thermite charge (does 10D, 1/2 impact armour, burns for 3 rounds doing the same damage, also breaches the water pipe.
Needs a demolition (5) test with 2 successes to disable the manual timer without detonating the device, releasing a skin absorbed bio-toxin, created from a species of plant native to Yakut (same effect as Atropine, vector inhalation/ingestion/contact, 6M no armour, +1 to all active skills, further 1+ for melee/short range attacks, +2 to all knowledge skills, does damage every 15 minutes until neutralised.
A breach of the water pipe causes massive outrush of water, flooding the area quickly (+2 to all TNs), the water jet will spurt out like a cannon hitting for 6S with double knockdown. Engineers there will need to make an engineering (5) test done on their collective 6 dice to alter the water flow, taking 5 rounds to reduce the modifier to +1 and another 5 rounds to drain enough water away to reduce the modifier to zero
There are 3 engineers on site, two legit and one saboteur - stats of all 3s, has a concealed knife and a deadman charge (8S IPE, -1/m, 4 successes on demo test for effect)
To get rid of the bio-toxin, it needs to be ID'd - biotech (10) test, revealing that its Abrin based, there is no antidote - they all need to be scrubbed clean to get rid of the contact vector, and have supportive care. They may lose their clothes and worn armour to "contamination"
The saboteur is a sleeper agent, has been in the city for 5 years+, was vetted, but has been activated by the shapeshifters a few weeks ago. He knows of 4 other civilians in his "cell" which he knows by face and has an idea of where they live.


2 Shapeshifter Owl - B4, Q6, S4, C3, I5, W6, R5, Init 3D6+4, CP6, Attack 5M Armour 1/1 (Caster, control thoughts, mask, blindness,fireballs, decrease reaction
2 Shapeshifter Dogs- B4, Q5, S5, C3, I5, W4, R6, Init 2D6+5, CP8, Attack 6M bite+disease, Armour 2/2

Random fires starting all over the city, along with 20-30 watcher spirit "screamers", travelling in packs and supressing the uninitiated mages, while infiltrators / saboteurs are setting fires, cracking gas mains, blocking up sewers etc


(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) Zoltuka: Free Wind Spirit Force 6, Spirit energy 3,(Dispelling, Sorcery, Animal Form) Spell list: Blizard (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)

Irkutsk: Lt General Maksud Alikhanov (Corps commander), Black hair, very dense and shaggy, green eyes, trim figure
Aide: Colonel Ivan Frunze, Red hair, clean shaven, imaculate uniform, recruiting poster look
Vitoly Frederick, Grade 1 mage, Captain, cadre of 20 mages, all the rest uninitiated. Mages have the standard soviet spell list of (Powerbolt 4, Spiritbolt 4, Treat 4, Hibernate 4, Blindness 4, Stealth 4, Improved Invisibility 4, Control fire 4, Reinforce 4)

127th Motor Rifle Division 12,000, Major General
15th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade 2,000, Brigadier
21st Guards Motor Rifle Brigade 2,000, Brigadier
30th Motor Rifle Brigade 2,500, Colonel
92nd Rocket Brigade 1,000, Brigadier
385th Guards Artillery Brigade 1,000, Brigadier
950th Rocket Artillery Regiment 1,000, Brigadier
297th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade 1,500, Brigadier
91st Headquarters Brigade 500, Brigadier
105th Logistic Support Brigade 1,000, Brigadier
2nd NBC Protection Regiment 500, Major
Engineer Sapper Regiment 750, Major
53rd Electronic Warfare Battalion 500, Colonel
71st communications center 500, Major
2934th satellite communication station 500, Major
323rd mail and telephone communication center 500, Major
1388th Command Intelligence Center 500, Major

[Kren Cooper]

Session 149 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57063000677581/
A recovery week for the team – fresh out of the blast from the demolition charge on the water supply and their poisoning, they got expert medical attention from an NBC regiment and field hospital, which combined with a bit of magical healing got them back on their feet relatively quickly. They volunteered for some scouting, had a cracking stealth roll and some great perception scores – so they managed to find the summoning team and dealt with them, which is also going to take the pressure off somewhat in the next day, and finally got another little nudge from Spook about the next job. I’m hoping, and gently pushing them towards this, but if they turn it down, then fair enough… they’ll just miss out on some really awesome loot and contacts!
They also have some clues about what is coming later on in the in game day, and hopefully will soon be heading down to the dam, where they can encounter the “Seal” team. Shapeshifters…. You can see where this one is going can’t you… <grin>.
As usual, here’s the write-up notes…

• Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 52.30972, 104.20729, Time: 00:40
• Aswon and Marius S, Kai Moderate, Hunter Light,
• Body (3) tests - all pass,
• Aswon asks for radio, gets one in a bag, report to the colonel, call engineer, report on anti-tamper. helped by Hunter and Marius.
• Kai asks for info on the dam upriver
• Russians take weapons to clean, Shimazu to look after them, team is taken back to hotel to rest.
• Tasers seem to be trashed by purple cleaning gunk, everything else is ok.
• Team rest, Aswon has a lie in - 4-5 hours.
• Frunze explains about air raid sirens. Shimazu checks on Vadim - back at the tilt wing avoiding senior officers
• Aswon asks for fabreeze? Gets medicated shampoo.
• In the morning, basic breakfast, Hunter goes to tilt-wing for clothes, Tads does healing. Kit maintenance. Aswon moans about his wild hunt suit with massage liners.
• Spook texts Aswon, asks for a chat when he's free. He warns Kai, then steps outside.
• you look pink? nasty poison, you ok to talk? Be outside in somewhere grim - because you are somewhere grim. Chat, Aswon weeks - no days, talk to Kai.
• Tads heals Aswon, Kai and Marius 2/3.
• Aswon back in to talk to Kai - has a job, low risk, high travel, east asia, high pay,
• Kai: it all depends on the next 24 hours I suppose, after that - if the invasion goes either way, we're out of here.
• Aswon - have to deal with the stuff Nadia is dealing with. Then Iran, then temple.
• Marius - dragons + int, remember speciifc words, Marius thinks they have time for a job.
• Kai - get back to spook, get 24 hours, then find out where we need to go to.
• Aswon calls spook, relays message.
• Checks with analysts - Hunter learns there are 5 spots. Trying to narrow down the target areas for one swift strike.
• Marius - we can do that? Brief talk - talk to colonel, Kai briefs, he will check with the general
• Tads suggests arranging fuel on the way back too, to make the bird ready to leave. And we need to work out what to do with Vadim. Kai: take him with us. Or lose him in Japan maybe? Ask Vadim - he wants to learn more about his magical potential.
• Frunze comes back and approves mission, gives tactical radio with encryption, asks for sensor sweeps,
• Aswon - check with Brigadier Kai, ask if the spirit has gone back? Tads, ask about other bases too?
• Marius outlines the plan to fuel, recon and direct.
• Tads asks for body armour for a few of them.
• Now about 09:00, Vadim coming with them.
• Report on the dam downriver - all normal. Also gets 2 pistols from the colonel.
• Also suggest to kill all stray animals - just in case.
• All to the tilt-wing, airport, fuel up, then head north. 8 on vehicle stealth.
• Get to first site - not this one, pond too dried up, same at the second, still not spotted.
• 3rd site - abandoned, site of magical ritual, some time ago. Possible ritual, to summon spirits and make pacts - Shimazu does aura reading.
• Spot the 4th, watcher spirits gathering over the pond, confirm details - dog shapeshifters, Aura reading - taste like the same spirits.
• flying on to #5, calling in the artillery strike. Russians get a 14 and 15 on their targeting. Battalion of SO-203 Maka SPGs, T-15 chassis, 4 rounds, audible warning, 40km range. 48t weight, 14 crew, 3 batteries of 6 guns. mist cloud to front, rear scoop dig into earth, shells are 110kg each.
• On to the last one - no sign of anything. Except the watcher spirits in a pack chasing after them
• Tads nukes them with a one shot stunball.
• Hunter got *great* footage of the blast, Kai radios in that targets were destroyed. Sneak back across the border, back to the airport and refuel.
• Frunze is waiting for the team at the airport, asks for permission to come aboard, wants a report. Hunter sends the report to him via squirt
• Asks what their intentions are. Kai - any sign of attack? Frunze: all on high alert, river being watched, troops on the bridges. Watching. Kai - what about insurgents?
• Frunze - all quiet, calm before the storm.
• Refuel and head back to the hotel, park the tilt-wing nearby.
• Spook calls - details of the meet, 50k, midnight meeting. West of Tokyo.
• Knock at the door as the team finish lunch. Average, height female, are you the specialist team? Kai are they in trouble? No? Then come in.
• Explains about waves and data, propagating wrongly.
• Kai - go get the colonel, says Hunter. Face goes white when they team mention that.
• Colonel arrives, Lt at strict attention.
• Kai recounts the story. WEird stuff about 500km north up the lake. Colonel asks about the chain of command, she gets nervous, Kai defends her.
• Colonel sends her back, telling her not to tell anyone about where she's been.
• Ask about naval presence, advice to go on high alert
• Hunter asks about artillery shell / depth charges.
• Talk about political rivalry, having to deal with central command to get the navy working with them and get sensor footage.
• Kai - tads, what water spirit can you do. - she details lake spirits and powers. Aswon - send a gang, one of them should make it back.

[Kren Cooper]

Good morning everyone – this week’s episode of the smuggler game is now published and can be read at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57074800602581/
Somewhat to my surprise, rather than relaxing after their traumatic experience with the poison and the bomb in the water pumping station, the team elected to go for a long distance recon mission, and flew almost the length of Lake Baikal, deep into Yakut territory.
So, a good stealth roll and careful consideration about how they were going to do it saw them slip across the border no problems – the Yakut forces are being careful at the moment not to show their hands and are keeping a low profile after all. Then up, and they encounter the power site at White Rock for the first time – on seeing a power site with a rating of 6, they wisely decided to steer clear of whatever was going on there!
Almost at the top of the lake, they start to run into magical defences – here I was just trying to get them to turn back and head to the city, so I can get them to the dam for the attack there, but make sure they weren’t too damaged that it would make that encounter difficult. With the bomb last week, a lot of the players are now quite low on both re-rolls and good karma, and are feeling the pinch somewhat (which is good, and where I wanted to be), so certainly they’re being ‘careful’. So a huge flock of birds, boosted by spirit powers seemed like a good way of showing a lot of power without needing to be soaking force 10 powerbolts cast at D…
It seemed to do the trick though, and got them to turn around, and they made it back to the city ok – and for the first time really spotted / took in the location of the dam, and questioned how big it was, and what the impact would be on the city, after realising which way the river flowed. Then they got a bit more fired up about investigating it, and heading down that way.
Then it was only one more tiny nudge I had to give to a player – Lee / Marius was all set to stay in the tilt-wing in case the team needed to get a quick dust-off, when I asked him if he was happy his remote control deck was working ok. Fortunately he seemed to take the hint, grab his deck and leave Vadim the new NPC in the chopper on guard, while they all go as a team into the dam. This avoids us splitting the party again, keeps the team all together where they can work together against the bad guys and makes his electronics skills available as well as providing an extra gun of course.
Next week – a bunch of shapeshifters infiltrate the dam and start to cause havoc, leading to a hopefully sprawling and messy fight through several locations with – “Seal Team 6”. It’s a team of 6 seal shapeshifters….

I’ll get my coat.


As usual, here are the notes from the game:
First of all, after Hunter wound up Vadim, I’ve looked up a suitable response, so he can try to find a time to enact revenge: Vadim - "popalsya" - 'got you'

• Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 52.30972, 104.20729, Time: 13:00
• Marius heads to the bird to pre-flight and run checks. Hunter looking at the computer data. Kai - I think we ought to patrol the lake, get a look - if we fly down the middle, can we view everything on the lake?
• Aswon - we should let Tads summon big spirits, then recover from the drain. Check - dusk at 19:47. They're mostly going to come at night, aren't they
• Tads - should we look at the lake now, and get back her for dusk and prep for the evening. Kai - ok, that seems reasonable. How many? Tads, can do about 6 of a reasonable force. Kai - let's go look then, just a recon, disengage if we find anything.
• Aswon - suggest we want stealth, want a spirit concealment, even though we're going into a magical area. Tads - will need to be outside to summon.
• Sentry gives them a funny look, but doesn't stop them.
• Call the colonel - ahh, I've been told you've left the hotel. Yes - going for a recon over the lake. Ahh, good luck then. If we're not back by dusk, we're probably dead. We're not going to engage, but it might trigger something. ..... ok, if something happens, please give us as much notice as possible.
• Hunter - on the way back to the chopper - we need to sort out Vadim, if we take him out of the country will he count as a deserter?
• Back to the chopper - Vadim looks for senior officers, Hunter says the colonel is coming, he hides until after takeoff, glares at Hunter, realises it's a joke.
• Hop out of the city, get to a forest, summon some Great forms, team does a double check on all their gear, equipment and run the bug scanners over everything. No bugs found.
• Vadim manages to summon a F3 watcher with 1 hour. Hunter looks for data on weather on the lake, currents,
• Team goes for a run / do astral overwatch, cleaning etc while they are waiting
• Tads takes 4.5 hours to recover from summoning, liftoff at 17:30,
• Talk to Vadim - do you want to come with us to Japan - discussion about going awol, Kai mentions risks, Aswon talks about training, Marius - sounds like hermetic, Vadim - was based in Vladivostok, has a fiance there. Tads asks Hunter to look for talismongers in vladivostok, gets some hints from Shadowland, a few handles - pass that information on to Vadim.
• FF to 17:30, 60km to the lake, flying 100m (outside tentacle range) out over the lake, weather is clear, calm and quiet. Check wave height - glorious summer afternoon, golden glows, serene... spot waves about 30cm high, seems quiet for a lake that size
• Magic perception check, TN 5 = Kai 2, Shimazu 3, Tads 2, Aswon 3
• Power site 5-6, pre-existing site, before Yakut, Shimazu assenses, resists 10L stun on WP - sense of watchfulness, expectation, growing, but not anywhere near ready
• visual checks on flyby from the mundanes, covered in lush verdant forest - Marius gets 7 1s+1 success - no flat land at all, death trap
• fly on, up past the island, random sky spirit is trailing them. Tads assenses - hostile but not belligerent, watching. F5 spirit, shadowing the tilt-wing. Tads asks one spirit to guard the craft. Fly on.
• Bird strike - hundreds of crows on an intercept course, Marius takes evasive action, Crows adapt and follow, they spot the control pack spell - may be overlapping areas of multiple spells, maybe one huge EA spell. Birds are under movement power as well, spirit powers.
• Turn south and exfil -Marius feels rough air, trying to bring the craft down abstractly, rather than a direct attack, but handling is fine
• Tads assenses - one single spell with massive ex-area, maybe ritually cast.
• Aswon - ritual spell, cast that fast? Magic background, - maybe quickened or anchored. Possible attack force for the major assault later? Either way serious mojo.
• Crows break off soon, Spirit follows them to the border, Get phone comms back as they cross the border, send a message to the colonel, coming back need fuel, have intel to brief on their return.
• spot the naval patrol boats on the way back, 40t range, large launches with small torpedoes / deck guns,
• Spot the weather tower on the way back, assense, spot people in the tower, doing scans,
• Land back at the airport, get refuelled, Marius stretches, UAZ arrives with the Colonel. "Ahh, hello, colonel"
• "what did you see?"
• Ask about the tower - get told what it is
• show the colonel the footage, tell him about the crow / pack,
• What would the dam> What would happen if it broke? C - Major damage to the city. Ask the C to get engineers and mages on the case
• Aswon - we should put watcher spirits down there on patrol, as a tripwire.
• now 19:30, 15 mins to dusk, Kai - entering the danger zone. Get your troops ready. C - that doesn't fill me with confidence.
• Hunter pulls up topographical map, looks at impact of the dam break and highlights low ground.
• Colonel is slightly dubious about moving people on a hunch.
• Kai suggest spreading rumours about an attack from the NW, and move the troops to get them to higher ground.
• Team going to the dam, Colonel to the general to brief, they get his encryption key
• Talk about water spirits - great forms have "special effects" they can use.
• Send a message to the colonel, redouble watch on the lake, colonel agrees to pull Katina off for special duties.
• Land downstream a little, on the river banks,
• Marius - if we were going to blow up the dam, how would we do it? Charge underwater, at the base. Or maybe inside? Hunter - mythic - in through the water pipes? Aswon, but we should still check for a bomb. M - yeah, they've used bombs before. K - they could blow it up, take out the turbine, undermine the foundations - if this has been a long term plan. They know the russians don't have many mages - keep them busy looking elsewhere.
• Tads - examines area for large animals, looking for shapeshifters. don't spot anything
• Marius - do we know how Yakut has dealt with other urban areas? Do they have a scorched earth policy? Or take them intact?
• Aswon - Tads, what did you sense from the owl? That they'd use the civilians like sheep, so no issue killing them all.
• No spell signatures, no signs of anything astral - psych test from Shimazu - also no sight of any burnt buildings from here.
• Tads - we did have also the answer about the civilians - they were willing to posion the water supply, and it's not just the military drinking.
• Meet an MP who tells them to stop or else -- restricted area. Goes to voicemail. MP wants to see your papers. Tads hands over ID. doubletake, calls the sergeant,
• Sergeant arrives, checks ID, what are you doing here.
• Hunter drops Colonel Frunze. Sergeant, calls the captain, captain calls the colonel, tells the sergeant to let them do whatever they want? Really - yes really, or you'll be digging salt in the mines by tomorrow morning. right sir.
• Shift change at 4pm. Next shift change at 8am. Kai - check anyone coming in,
• 100 staff inside - civilians. Administrator is Tolstoy.
• Head to the dam.
• Marius checks the remote deck is working, all head to the dam entrance.

[Kren Cooper]

Morning folks. This weeks update is now live and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57088850272581/
Fairly straightforward this week – into the dam, meet the belligerent shift manager and have to work their diplomatic magic on him, explore the dam, find the bad guys, have a fight. Simples.
Not sure if I overplayed the belligerence, or they just couldn’t be bothered, or felt they really were under time pressure – but the ‘difficult negotiations’ phase quickly translated to ‘heavily armed and well experienced Shadowrunners don’t have time for your shit’ phase. Not unexpected per se, but normally the group is a bit more laid back. Still, that does give me a chance to actually follow through on the “do you know who my father is” statement – and give them more incentive to bug out from Russia after the job is done, when they find out the engineer has a close relative serving on the Politburo who is angry about his son being manhandled.
The single file long tunnel proved to give them an interesting challenge as well – there was more discussion on marching order for that than for most of the other decisions for the night, so at least they were paying attention to the environment – and Aswon’s player did remark that he was really glad he’d swapped out from ex-ex to gel before they got into the fight near the water pipe.
They’ve dealt with the first two easily enough, but they’re going to have to hunt down the remaining shapeshifters, who by this time will have planted their explosives and booby traps around the dam, and will be a tougher fight. Long term, I’m thinking that if they can take out the shapeshifters (which almost certainly means closing to melee to finish them off with weapon foci), then the Russians will send in the engineers to deal with the actual bombs.
After that, it’s time for a very short break and a karma award, and we should be off to Japan for the next mission / opportunity – and we’ll move into book #6. At least that’s my plans. Of course, there are players involved, so who knows what will actually happen….
As usual, here are the notes from the game session, so you can compare to the story:
• Date: Wednesday 1/9/2060, Location: 52.23724, 104.31406, Time: 19:15
• Marius deploys the Doberman to hover outside the dam, escorted to the dam door by the MP, then left.
• in to lobby, Formica, nasty potted plants, door going further in is maglocked.
• Ask the guard - can you get us in, do you have a pass?
• Tads warns the guard about shapeshifters, kill the animals, be prepared to shoot them again.
• Kai - let's look at the maglock. Tads, shouldn't we call? Nah, let's get some practice.
• Marius - doesn't want to poke the lock, doesn't want to break anything. Assesses the maglock - rating 3 or 4, one way sight glass. No cameras in lobby.
• Tads asks to be held, to go and look for astral targets, Hunter grabs her.
• Kai tries to dial, 1 - personnel, VM with opening times for HR
• Dial 0, Da, noisy, surprise inspection, ? Wait, 2-3 minutes.
• Tads checking the down side first, teeming with life, move to lakeside
• Failed reaction check, surprised by awakened pike
• Tads engaged in combat by 3 pike, first one base hit 5m Stun, no soak, 2nd attacks, wins by 2, 5s stun, third gets 1 net, 5m stun, overflows from 9 stun to light physical, passes out, Kai does biotech and gets rid of the light wound.
• Tads will wake up in 1 hour.
• Mr Ekharts - balding, bush mustache, protruding jaw, - I wasn't notified
• Get a doctor, this is a dam, not a hospital
• Marius pulls a gun - Eckarts makes his intimidation check - do you know who my father is?
• Kai - commanding voice - get inside. Wins. Kai - shimazu knock him out
• Aswon - whoa whoa, explains - he resists, dam, under attack.
• Hunter punches him, W. Eckart takes a serious.
• Kai follows up the attack. Attacks, he hits Kai with his radio, 3m stun (soaked)
• Shimazu hits with subdue, takes him down.
• Kai tries to revive Tads - success, "are you alright, what happened." Nothing city side, got ambushed by some fish - enemy fish,
• Are you ok to go on? Yeah, don't ask me to cast spells, but I can walk with you. What happened to him. Fell down the stairs. Kai takes the radio. Aswon swaps to gel rounds.
• Check the corridor out - all quiet, doors at both ends. Whistling from ahead, machinery from the left.
• Kai - two options, fake his voice, or walk forwards with the radio and say we're the inspection.
• Aswon - call and say we're an inspection team, we need to speak to security. Talk though, get the deputy and try to diplomacy
• "This is specialist Kai, I need to talk to the head of security". Tads suggest looking at Eckhart biotech. Shimazu checks, knocked out.
• "what's that, who's there?"
• "Specialist K, inspection team B." supervisor not available - hang on, are you at the front door, he's on the way to meet you.
• Through the whistling door, open into a chamber, maintenance gear - room is moist, positive air pressure. Check for smells - all good, random maintenance gear
• Check back corner, stairs down, set up paint cans near door
• through into turbine room 1, bit damp but otherwise clean, spot the tunnels and doors out, turbines - assense them, they're neutral.
• Kai bold as brass, wave his ID, blagging them as he moves along the top.
• Examine machines for foreign objects - Marius checks for mobile signals. Hunter checking with the nose
• Marius - shield room, no signal in or out. Hunter - nothing unexpected. Aswon looks for stuff out of place, hatches recently opened.nothing unusual. Show pic of tunnel, 100m long.
• Into the tunnel, Kai, Shimazu, Hunter, Tads Marius Aswon. ASwon hears water and weird echos
• spot mirror image gen room, wander to end of tunnel, get spotted Engineer taps on the side of his head, then sighs and wanders over. "Kai, inspection team" you gotta have your ppe. don't have any where is it - you gotta bring it with you. Everything ok? Yeah? Fake ticks, ok. Assense, guy is busy, doesn't want the hassle of following up on no hearing protection.
• Back to the middle, can hear the rushing water. Hunter engineering roll - waterproof bulkhead spotted
• Shimazu spots open inspection hatch on the tunnel. Aswon goes up the wall to DFA - makes a spot check, surprise check, points rifle at him, "freeze". Kai grabs tads. Roll init, see him, see threatening move - shoots with gel, takes M damages and D stun. Drops like a stone - Aswon sprints over.
• Kai spots something, mage bolts Aswon, he dodges, good dodge, only leaves one sucess 6m 1/2 impact, takes an L - rest of team roll up and kick off.
• Shimazu first - going over the pipe. 2 success, 2 botch - top of pipe is slimy
• Hunter - sprint down - athletics, +1q 10m,
• Marius - follows hunter down
• Kai - hanging back and hold Tads, tads drags him forward towards the guy with backpack
• Aswon called shot head, target down, no soaks Mage reverts to seal form a bit
• Shimazu tries to jump to other gantry - makes it over no problem
• Hunter spots dry sacks and moves to investigate - demo and overalls, tools, ear defenders
• Aswon guards the mage, Shimazu on the first. First one starts to recover, Shimazu spots no physical injuries = regen, tases him
• Hunter - finds water carbines and anti-tank charges - which may be active.
• Shimazu gets both bodies together - Aswon checks demo charges, they are primed but not counting down.
• Mage goes for a move, Shimazu tases, mage down again. Tads suggests putting rucksack over the seal mage head.
• discussion about what to do, other side of the tunnel, need to check. Shimazu executes the human-form one.
• Gag, wrap and bag the mage one.

[Kren Cooper]

Good evening everyone – episode 152 of the Smuggler game is now written up and published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57104295682581/
A fairly straight forward game session, and we’re in the home stretch now – they’re in the dam, found some bombs and are looking for saboteurs. I don’t think they were expecting to get into the 2nd room and find the bombs already set – or at least half of them – but I wanted to get them to explore the dam a bit more, and see what they’d do. So of course – they split the party. While one group ran into a small team including a mage who’d just finished setting more charges, the others managed to get the engineers out and call for backup.
The fight for the team A didn’t quite go to plan for them when a random roll of a dice triggered a sympathetic explosion after the double stun grenades, which has damaged the dam – but they’re all now certainly working under a feeling of time and danger pressure, having determined without doubt that the demo charges are live and capable of bringing the dam down.
Having had their tunnel collapsed / closed by the enemy mage, team A are racing around to try and head them off at the pass – my plan is to get them to arrive just a little too late, and find nothing but a tunnel carved out of the concrete down to the level below, where they’ll have to decide if they want to risk sliding down a one-way chute to catch them or not.
Team B – including poor Shimazu who can’t see in the dark (and the player took much ribbing for this, and has vowed next initiation he’s buying a bunch of senses with his power point) are stuck at the top of the stairs, and heading down. So this weeks run will probably start off with their fight / exploration down to the bottom level of the dam. If team A take the chute, they can catch up with them faster and possibly catch the bad guys in a pincer movement – otherwise, Shimazu is going to have his work cut out for him slicing and dicing…. And he’s only got one shot left on his taser IIRC.
This “adventure” has been running a little while now, so they’re starting to get low on re-rolls, and are taking things more seriously (mostly). Aswon is down to one Karma Pool, Marius, Shimazu and Tads are all on 3, Hunter has 4 and Kai (who is a dirty karma hoarding tart) has 7. I can certainly see a few of those being burnt this week!

As usual, here are the notes from the run:
• Date: Thursday 2/9/2060, Location: 52.23706, 104.32158, Time: 20:45
• Down passage to other door
• Aswon - checks, the seal is a full mage, can astrally project and warn others. Can't leave them. Tads - having them alive is a risk then, how will we spot them slipping out?
• Hunter - can we cut it's eyes out? Aswon - no - they'll regen, and that's awful. Not breaking "the convention". Take with. Kai drags. Aswon helps
• Get to other door, open an inch. Aswon moves up to help hunter, shimazu to guard the seal.
• Stealth up to the door, peek in, maintenance hatch, water around again, team moves in,
• Spot 2 live mines, 3.5 hours, there were 4 mines in the other side. Spot where they climbed up onto the gantry, no trail after that.
• Kai asks Aswon/Hunter to think about Demo/Engineering. Tads says she will go to HQ and report.
• Int test for team - Tads to report to Vadim, raise the alarm. Tads worried about possession, warns the guys to keep it away from her body. She gets back to body and briefs Vadim, warns about bombs, then heads back
• Aswon talking while Tads is gone - want to invoice the russians, keep it professional not political,
• Aswon thinks maybe charges in small areas to reverberate / magnify effect, Hunter- shear forces, maybe 90 angle for 2nd charges. Tads back from astral message, heading back to crossroads, up to main tunnel.
• Seal starts to wake up - Shimazu tases it, down to 1 charge left. Regen roll ok.
• Hunter sniffs for explosives - gets a wiff to the north side, he and aswon run to end of tunnel, spotted by engineer - "oi" - Aswon starts to explain, can't hear, approach cautiously
• Aswon - bombs, looking for new people. Eng- why do you have guns. A- military inspection - anyone new. No - Hunter goes to round up the others.
• Check the inspection hatches and rest of the room after assense - all human, but engineer #2 has bad vibes. Aswon - "Hunter, get him here!" He starts to back off, Aswon aims gun, engineer wets himself, falls to his knees begs forgiveness,didn't clean the filter
• Hunter - show me how close you can get to the front wall of the dam, eng brings up dam schematics
• Hunter suggests Kai evac the engineers - Aswon backs up. Hunter asks who Eckharts father is - ahh politburo.
• Kai - leave via emergency exit, go to safe area, wait for the MPs/miitary, stay in 3, capture 1 if the other 2 spot them doing something funny. Also suggest to split the team, Shimazu and Kai take the seal and check the other engineers. Hunter tells the eng to tell the mp's that the specialist team sent you out and to call the bomb squad.
• Shimazu 3 success 5 1s on assensing - very suspicious, Kai - 5 successes, all fine. Convinces primary engineers to exit out as well. Check the paint cans - undisturbed. Kai asks spirit to go downstairs and tell him if anyone is down there.
• Kai - calls Frunze, says Vadim has just briefed him. Kai says about bombs, also have high value magical target, need tranqs and mage hoods.
• Spot a single target, heading into the north side water pipe, team try to sneak up, Marius follows up at distance, Tads stays even further back.
• Guy comes back out, surprise check Aswon>Seal>Hunter. Roll init
• Hunter 14, Aswon 25, Tads 5, Marius 20, Seal 17
• Aswon - called shot to face, some dodge, takes an M, buys one on the knockdown test to break LOS
• Marius - move up, raise pistol, hold action.
• Seal - shouts for alarm, loudly
• Hunter - pulls out a flashbang and throws, good attempt, on target but bounces / scatters, he shouts "flashbang"
• Tads - spell defence and shielding, open mouth, close eyes and cover ears
• Aswon - covers the end of the corridor
• Marius - continue to hold,
• Seal - tries to distance strike the flashbang - fails due to mods
• Hunter - throws a 2nd flashbang, lands pretty near the first one.
• Aswon - centre for penalties
• Demo charge goes off sympathetically - only 1, deep resonated rumble, doors slam shut
• Aswon 21 delay, shoots once, slow advance, holds simple, then shoots seal p - dodges
• Seal=P 15 distance strike at Hunter, hits, does an L,
• Hunter 15, shoots, takes it down, fires again, goes down hard
• Marius 14, shoots the phys-add
• Seal M=9 - shape earth
• Tads 3 - check passage behind just in case
• water tight door #2 slams shut
• Aswon and Hunter rush around, Marius stays to cover the first 1
• Marius finds 1s - looks dead. Tads pokes with weapon foci
• Spirit comes back to Kai, people are downstairs, shudder, main lights go out, kill the seal, start to sprint downstairs, start fight next time
• end of session

[Kren Cooper]

Good afternoon everyone! Another week, another update, another week of socially distanced online gaming.
This weeks update is now live and can be found at this location: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...157118864427581
Unfortunately it looks like Facebook for "reasons" have decided to stop using Notes, so it looks like I'm going to have to find an alternate location to host the weekly writeups - perhaps a simple Wordpress blog site will do, or I can look for some other equivalent perhaps.
Anyway - enough grumbling, and on with the froth. We got the climax of this little campaign arc, with the shapeshifters being located in the dam, running around with demo charges and planning to launch a devastating attack on the city. But, wouldn't you know it, the players turned up just in time, to save the day. What are the odds.
The session started with a quick rewind - I realised that Tads had been disrupted in astral combat, so regardless of the fact that she hadn't taken deadly damage all in one go, she still had to check for magic loss, and we hadn't done that. I'd had a chat with her to tell her we'd have to do that during the session, and that given her grade it was very likely we would be looking at a lost magic point - which of course sucks. So we had a talk about Geas, and I suggested a geas of "not underwater" - which given how she would have lost the magic point,seemed to fit very well. So I think Ali (Tads) had more or less resigned herself to her fate. I waited until a couple of people were online on Discord, and then got Ali to roll. I don't think anyone would have distrusted us, but with it being "the GM's wife", I wanted to make sure people knew I'd made a mistake, and we were fixing it, and it's not a case of favouritism or special treatment. So, she rolls her 2d6 - and of course, fate smiles on her, and she gets a double 6... Am I ever glad that there were witnesses to that roll!
So, no lost magic point, no geas. She still had to pretty much sit out most of the action in the session, as she was still wandering about on deadly stun having made a WP check to regain consciousness, but she was pretty chipper for some reason...
The team fights, and eventually catches up with the last group,and with some good rolls, karma rerolls and copious amounts of brutality defeat the enemy - though the free spirit was disrupted and is gone for 20 days, rather than captured and interrogated to determine its true name (which was the original plan - not that Tads was in any fit state to mind probe anything!) So, they're aware that in 3 weeks a very angry spirit will be back in the world, and probably looking for them.
But, with the dam plan scuppered, the Yakut attack faltered, and the Russians fought back, routing the enemy, saving the city and preserving control of the trans-Siberian railroad. Players being players, they asked for more phat loot - which I'm currently working on various options for.
Option 1 - give them a couple of suits of previous gen Milspec armour - maybe sized for Marius and Hunter. Marius will take penalties for trying to use it based on his stats, but might find the protection useful in various circumstances, while Hunter would make much better use of it.
Option 2 - a big bunch of APDS ammo, and maybe some explosives / grenades / other supplies that the army should have reasonable access to - enough to certainly improve the quality of life of the two mundanes and probably some of the phy-ads.
Option 3- a "surplus" AA gun or other big piece of equipment, something they can get shipped back to the ranch to use for defence of their new lair.
Option 4 - trade goods of some kind - but chances are the Russians don't have that much, as they're pretty broke and impoverished (otherwise they'd have hired mercs to do the job and help them out, not the players)
Option 5 - some fancy tech. Maybe updated scanners / radar / systems that can go in the chopper, or some new drones, or maybe even encryption software or programs for Hunters deck... a copy of some software won't cost them as much, and might fit in better.
Option 6 - some big guns / missiles. While this might be cool, I'm wary of turning their smuggling craft into a gun-boat, as it's very enticing to install the big pew pew, but will cut down on their cargo space, which does force them done a route towards certain kinds of missions.
This is on top of their basing rights for the two Russian cities, that extends their fuel / travel ranges, of course.
If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to chime in!

Otherwise, as usual, here are the notes taken during the session, that generated the writeup:
1. Date: Thursday 2/9/2060, Location: 52.23706, 104.32158, Time: 21:00
2. Kai and Shimazu at bottom, down the stairs, corridor at the bottom is dark, stealth checks - Shimazu 3, Kai 6. Send spirits to scout ahead. Hold position due to dark
3. Back to Aswon and Hunter, working forwards, spot a rucksack discarded at the end of the passage, notify aswon, move up quietly
4. Aswon checks the side tunnel to the spillway, Hunter moves forwards,
5. S&K, stealthing down, 10 and 5, spirit returns says 2 animals +1 person 40m ahead, ask spirit to lead them on
6. upstairs - spot the shape earth tunnel, fading heat sign from blood, goes down the tunnel
7. checking spillway on left side - Marius, no demo, no sign of access,
8. Marius - how stable are those mines? Aswon - once armed, not at all. Marius - we could drop grenades down the chute? Aswon - WTF?
9. Demo roll - would the mines go off sympathetically? Demo roll - mixed chance.
10. Tads - could they shape earth all the way outside? Aswon - nothing, that's why we need to hurry up. I'll crawl down first. Tads, can I have spell defence? T - yes. Aswon crawls down. 6m, very faint heat trail.
11. S+K moving forward, tunnel to left, nothing down there. Kai perceives, guides Shimazu with a hand on shoulder.
12. Aswon drops into tunnel spots S+K, Hunter down, check other way, long empty passage. Aswon suggests Marius+Tads go out to find the russians.They head back
13. Get to passage and turn west, up to 3 abreast
14. Roll init
15. Zoltuka 30, 20 - blizard to Aswon only 3 with a rroll, Aswon dodges(1), then soaks 6D, takes an M, knockdown test passed, dematerialises in r3
16. Shimazu 28(30) - run, attacks spirit, loses by 1, soaks ok, kills spirit,
17. Hunter 22, 9 round burst - kills the worker, aim and burst at the seal mage - hits him for an S; lands at the bottom of 6m hole for 2m soaked
18. Aswon 18 - runs forwards; charges spirit, wins combat, does an M
19. Seal 1 17, engages Shimazu but takes a D
20. Seal 2 17, sonic blast Shimazu for 7d - takes a Light after a reroll Shimazu buys 1 for no damage, shape earth under Hunter falling, re-roll, falling,
21. Kai 7, shouts at mage who turns around, then takes a few steps forward
22. New rounds, only mage left, drop him and then tase the mage,
23. Outside - MPs draw on Marius - Marius lets SMG fall, puts empty hands out. MPs start to interrogate Marius - he's from the special team. Start to hear russian choppers coming from the airport, driving hard, Sgt comes over - what do you need?
24. "comms are difficult, but my team are in there taking out the saboteurs. We need demo engineers and mage hoods."
25. we're not equipped, but there are mages coming. But what about the engineers. "most of them are loyal, keep them corralled"
26. Troops fast rope in, Fredericks appears, mages and watchers coming. "we need teams to take the awakened into custody"
27. Frunze arrives in a 3rd chopper, starts to organise, demo is coming by truck.
28. Back down, medics and soldiers appear to capture the shifters, sweep and clear the facility, escort the shifters out, bomb squad turn up and go in.
29. Katina calls Kai, tidal wave, .5m high, 500kph,
30. Aswon yells for everyone to get up against the dam. Hunter engineering - hydrodnamics to get an idea of what will happen.
31. Kai tells the colonel to order the choppers to strafe the tidal wave to hit hidden enemies.
32. Tidal wave hits, very few deaths.
33. Air raids - enemy launches attack. Full russian defence, major war zone.
34. Frunze slightly flummoxed - Aswon advises not to let the distraction affect him - go fight the war.
35. Take the colonel to the chopper + radioman. Kai medkit on Aswon
36. rroll - one success - battle lasts less than 30 minutes before they are routed
37. Tads recovers her first box of stun. Back to airport, refuel, then to HQ. War room super busy, full of bodies
38. General - can you assist us with pursuing the enemy?
39. Kai - can we get some idea of what you want? G - well pursue the routers. K - we have MMGs, General - pushing for the team to go to war. K - Team is a bit battered.
40. Frunze briefs General, ahh - you deserve a rest then. General organises a main ground assault. Frunze takes the team back downstairs to the previous room.
41. Kai asks who he can sort invoices out with. Frunze - baking powder? Talk about equipment instead. Tads mentions Vadim.
42. Team winding down.

[Kren Cooper]

Good evening everyone! Welcome to a very special episode for completely arbitrary reasons involving numbers that really shouldn’t actually matter. But they do to me, at least a little. This week’s episode, which is posted up at :https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57132293047581/ takes us over the 1 million word mark. I never imagined when I started this that we’d reach that kind of figure. Hah – take that Mrs Jefferson, Junior school English teacher who said I’d never achieve anything!

Of course, that’s not to say they’re the best words. The wordiest words. They may only be average words. But on the other hand, though there’s never normally feedback on the posts, I keep seeing the “view count” going up week after week, so I’m guessing people are at least seeing what is going on - though I have no idea if they're just reading the post here, or checking out the actual narrative on the public FB post as well.

Mind you, the 1m word count ‘achievement’ is tempered by the player’s choices...

They’d previously indicated that they were planning to go via Ulaanbaatar, where Kai’s tribe were based. That would lead to a nice bit of backstory reveal, and his level 2 buddies would in turn furnish a new smuggler stopover in eastern Mongolia, allowing them another refuelling bubble to use for their travels. I’d also found a lovely Mongol custom and annual event for Golden Eagle flying that just happened to be at the right time of year, so there was going to be a little festivity, some chance for awakened eagle critter tail feathers, all kinds of stuff like that. And what do they decide to do? Go east instead, stay in Russia and avoid Mongolia entirely.

Buggers.

Oh well, another plot line to go on the shelf and keep for later on, if they ever do come back this way. In the meantime there was some frantic adlibbing to create Vadim’s home and the profession for his family, throw in a bit of interest for the team with his mother’s strange reaction to magic.
And of course, a bit of IC revenge on Kai for not thinking about time zones and waking people up at 2am who have “real jobs”.
Next week then will be a quick skip through the next few days I hope, giving all the magically active people a chance to finish their initiations they started after last week’s karma awards, as well as letting the mundanes gets some solid training time in. Then it’s down to Vladivostok to pick up a box of talismongering supplies to take to Japan and drop off. This I’ll do my best to handle simply and quickly, and get them to the park on midnight of the 7th, ready to start the meeting with the next employer – for which I should have two NPCs from our live role play system coming to join us on discord, and play the parts. Hopefully this will add a nice bit of intrigue for the players, and make them work for the job – it’s not the GM with a silly voice after all, but two living, breathing real people that they need to impress.
We’ll have to see how that works out of course.

As usual, here are the in game notes so you can see what drove the narrative and what the differences are:

• Date: Friday 3/9/2060, Location: 52.29031, 104.32098, Time: 07:00
• Private knocks on the door, do you want breakfast.
• Aswon - message from spook, data received, good job, well done, payment inbound
• Tads sends a well done to Nadia for computer stuff - can you look for acid resistant gear.
• Kai - message to frederick - how are things.
• Marius - half way through breakfast, Vadim calls, people want to put stuff on the tilt wing. Hunter+Aswon go out.
• Big boxes waiting to go on the tilt-wing, platoon with orders to drop them off.
• Lootboxes
• 1 X 2S12-S Mortar (250kg boxed) system with 100 rounds of Anti-personnel (400kg) +20 solar (70kg) (about 30k value)
• 1 X belt of 100 rounds APDS HMG (3K)
• 1 X crate of 50 Russian IPE offensive grenades (3K)
• Armoured combat uniforms, Cammo, 4/2, Conceal 8, Russian DPM, 2 points thermal resist, two sets each
• Vadim warns Hunter about someone round the undercarriage last night. Vadim - "popalsya" - 'got you'
• Hunter checks on Shadowland for costs of gear
• Aswon mentions his arms dealer in Lanzhou, discussion about selling mortar
• Ask Vadim what he wants to do - still come with them.
• Marius calls Nadia - chats for a few minutes, complains about broadband. Marius tells her they are going to Japan, not home, Nadia disappointed.
• Kai - talk to vadim about getting fuel for Japan,
• Frunze arrives, get out of here in the next 5 minutes, KGB coming, move it... interupt Marius on the phone to Nadia,
• Frunze tells them to get in the air, will sort out the paperwork and cyphers in a while.
• Head east towards Vladivostok for now, leaving 8am,
• Aswon calls spook - how are you, all alive, on the way to japan, we can get to japan in 12 hours or so. Oh - ok, didn't think it was that fast, let me check. A - we can have a layover. S - will check and get back to you ASAP. A - I was in a tidal wave. Hangup.
• Tads starts to bond foci. Asks Kai for permission / funding for getting mindlink mass researched by a 3rd party.
• Frunze calls, gives 2 airstops. Tads suggests to get in uniform. Heading east. Hunter makes *awful* flight plan check, RR - ok 2nd.
• Kai wants to contact Gregory Zucco, calls, it's 2am, groggy, can you call back at a decent hour. K - heading to Vladivostok, heading to japan, if you need anything anything. K - going via vladivostok. He hangs up
• Tads - learns, sends Aslik a message asking about spell design
• Aswon - calls Mr Hu - straight to ansaphone. Message - "have some high impact equipment to get rid of, will be at Vladivostok.
• Team does learning stuff. Aswon training time for instruction.
• Kai - asks Hunter for media check on Japan. Fuchi going to the wolves, big business disruptions.
• Approach Vladivostok about 16:00, major port and urban connurbation,
• Hunter gets some background info on japan and meta-prejudice.
• Marius wants into the military base, get refuelled, then move to a civilian part.
• Tads asks Vadim what he can drive - car, tractors, grew up on a logging camp. Vadim offers to let them stay at his parents.
• Take them to logging camp. Vadim parents chatting on the phone, many family photos, advises the team to "be busy
• Managed forestry - 20acre plots, grown in strips,
• Tads - are you going to tell your family about your talents - he wasn't planning on it. Vadim uses her as a barometer for him later.
• Kai gets Tads to make some truffles - Tads makes haunches of reindeer.
• Mom hugs all, kisses, starts to ask Vadim if he's deserted, then Ms Blakowitz's daughter in the general stores.
• She stats to ask about the secret mission. Tads says Vadim will have to be around magic. Mom is entranced. Tads assenses - 8 success, prosethic left foot, datajack in wrist. Tads offers to help with food, Ma is a little uncomfortable, wounded pride.
• Set up sleeping accoms, Aswon gets hammock, Hunter wants room by the fire in the kitchen.
• Wedding pictures, tractor with bunting,
• Sound of rocket launching, Mum looks up 16:15.
• Mr Hu, Aswon, I got your message. In Vlad, here several days, if you want to. Gets size, is this a quick sale. Ah, we'll take trade. Mini-grenades, special ammo, tasers, gas grenades, neuro stun, arrows? Will call you back, no more than 3 days. A - going from here to Japan, where in J - tokyo, ah ok south islands,
• Vadims family come back - very blue collar workers, big drinkers, Vadim play fight,
• Aswon helps cook. Brothers rib Vadim a bit, but apologise to Tads. Quiz Vadim about what is going on...
• Hunter does gun cleaning, one brother very interested. Tads tops up food, mother is entranced, can you talk to the men of the woods.
• Gregory calls back at 2am (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Telesma shipping, on the 6th to Toyama bay. 8-10k for delivery Agreed, setting up the job.
• Tads talks to the mom, her mum was a witch, she is sad it skipped over generations, knows spirits are real. Tads looks for hearth spirit - gets an idea that there is one, but it's hiding (3 successes, 3 1's)

[Kren Cooper]

Another week, another session. The writeup is up at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57145590582581/ for the last time, as FB stop notes this week ☹. There will probably be a dropbox link going up for a PDF if anyone wants to read it, as well as updating the “book” PDF, until I get caught up on the two sites I’m now publishing on. Links for those by the way are:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617/chapters/65851744
Both of those are up to episode 17 now – when I re-read some of the early stuff it made me twitch with how brief they were or light on details, so I’ve been editing them a bit – adding a few thousand words here and there to more fully explain things. Hopefully that will only be needed on a few more as the word count started to rise as I got into my stride.

Anyway, a bit of pressure on me as the GM this week to try and get the pacing *just* right, without making it too obvious to the players. Next week I have two of my LARP buddies joining the discord channel to play NPC roles, so I wanted to try and finish this weeks session just at the point of arrival at the meet, so we can get straight on with the action, and not have the NPCs hanging around waiting while the players faffed and procrastinated. We ran a tiny bit later than we normally did, but managed to get to the right point – and at least one of the players now has an awful sinking feeling.
They were having issues with the apparent difficulty of getting into Japan after doing some research, and especially when they discovered what the air defence ECD rating was, were seriously considering just aborting the job. However, they trusted to a bit of magic (poor Tads – she was one box off Deadly stun after summoning and then great-forming a F6 sea spirit, and spent most of the journey trying to shake off the modifiers) and got into Japan (by the skin of their teeth – the perception roll was one less than their stealth score!!), made the first drop off at Toyama bay and then headed cross-country. When they didn’t get buzzed or challenged at all, they started to realise they were really in trouble, dealing with a “mover and shaker” with enough pull / clout to clear a path for them.
And at the end, when they encountered both Chinese and Japanese goons, Jez (Aswon) put 2 and 2 together and groaned… but I think he’s looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

Next week is going to potentially be an absolute bitch to write up as it’s likely to be dialogue heavy – I just hope I don’t miss too much detail in my note taking.

In background notes, Ali (Tads) for once made a really good decision when it came to poking spirits, and left Vadim alone with his totem / the free spirit that keeps the area safe, and they made contact with a local talismonger for some supplies. I went with a twist on this guy to see if they’d pick up – as a sea shaman, he was influenced by the tides, and as the tide started to go out, his personality “flipped” to a much less friendly version. I don’t think any of the party connected the description of the tide going out as they left to the shaman though, just thinking it was colour – maybe next time.

As usual, here are the notes on the game session that drove the narrative:
Date: Saturday 4/9/2060, Location: 43.39301, 132.04516, Time: 08:00
1. Hunter: Getting into Japan legally is out - not enough time to go through the visa process from the consulate, Good computer rolls 4 5s, Sensor 7, Flux 8, ECCM 7, ECD 7, NPCs=Equal/2
2. Silent Wind UAVs (p175 R3) - jet, up to 1620 speed, Sensor 4, but short range (160 litre, 0.5km/l)
3. Check shadowlands, no contacts made, but details on drone
4. Aswon checks with spook, looking for help to get in.
5. Shimazu int check - details of 2nd IDs needed.
6. Team talking about how to get in - aswon pondering just walking away.
7. Hunter and Marius, Aswon not going to the talismonger Rudi. All else
8. Hunter and Marius fix condor, local parts, help repair the logging equipment
9. Meet Rudi in the dark, back of the bar, looking for 10 force points of warding materials, Kai face sculpted to look local
10. Warding materials are seaweed related - 900 per force point. Good negotiation, get details of shaman
11. Kai talking with Rudi, talk about smuggling stuff, 1+2rr! Get details for Dragon Pirates. Show vadim the same formula in both styles of magic. Leave the shopkeep a bit tip / tab for Vadims family.
12. Kai asks about potions, on the phone to aswon, underwater breathing, swim speed potions are available. Sudden mood change asking about creatures, buy 2 of each potion for 2k each, another 1k for Vadim.
13. Spook texts back, don't worry, just need to know when, arrangements will be made.
14. Tads looks for spirit - 17 on perception, 18 on stealth! Watching her, nobody else spots, Shimazu thinks suspicious but not hostile
15. Mr Hu calls and gives details of ship transfer south of Tokyo
16. Gregory re pickup
17. Tads teaches Vadim in the woods to try and not alarm the spirit and show not hostile.
18. Hunter and Marius work on additional internal fuel to give +250l (to 1900l) base tank size, +drop prod
19. Tads meets the forest spirit at dusk,transforms to wolverine, meets Vadim, Tads heads back to the house. Vadim comes back 5 hours later, exhausted, invoking form his initiate level
20. Get details of meet from spook, learning etiquette from Shimazu - good roll, japanese culture - Aswon, home cooking - *great* cookies
21. Get cargo from east side - survey new corp HQ, about 80% complete, own airstrip and port
22. Edge of totem - no predators
23. Get ready to leave, advise spook of plans for entry and exit
24. Leave at 7pm on the 6th, heading to Toyama
25. Dusk over the sea of japan, team discuss on force,
26. Marius 10 on vehicle stealth, +sig 5,GR F6 sea spirit for concealment - Tads takes M+S
27. Team sends updates to contacts to advise ETAs
28. Spook sends zigzag course from the bay to the edge of tokyo, low level flight
29. Come in to the bay undetected, grey panel van, two goons, get box, pays with credstick - 9k
30. Flying to tokyo, Handling check on 5s narrow mountain passes and bridges, success
31. Landing in the park, perfect landing.
32. Hunter staying in tilt-wing. Aswon taking spear, Shimazu suggest to Kai to get rid of the ears, taking sword, Tads no staff, otherwise unarmed, unarmoured - but takes cookies.
33. 2nd escort group arrive - spot chinese,
34. Peace bond the weapons, lead through the trees
35. Aswon assenses - ribbon is normal, high force watchers circling park. Mentions to Tads that they have magicl support
36. Approach the two old men playing go. Aswon spots perimeter guards facing out.

[Kren Cooper]

Gah... brain dead.
Working out where the players will need to go, and what is needed to support this in terms of game logistics... so have just populated the Ring of Fire with 15 new locations, giving a variety of smuggler stops and refuelling locations - trying to come up with a twist or distinctive thing for each one, and working out the supporting history for the area to work out which corps or powers are the movers and shakers - and then of course come up with the main NPC for each of those locations and get them all down in my tracker.

I think I've just exhausted todays stock of creativity. But at least the first location is well mapped out, so tomorrow night is well and truly in the bag - even if the players are amazingly well organised.

[Kren Cooper]

Smuggler session 156 is now live and can be found (for the last time) at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...157158116127581

Well, exciting week. Two guests joined our discord chat, playing the part of Mr Kuro and Mr Shiroi. The players came up to their location, and then listened as the NPCs introduced themselves, while I furiously took notes and tried to keep up, while having the occasional side chat over messenger with the two NPCs to provide the occasional tiny little steers.
Feedback from the players generally seemed good, with indications that they enjoyed actually RPing with real life people and having to work out what was going on. Jez/Aswon is convinced they’re Ruymo and Lung, and I don’t think anyone would bet against him and his meta-knowledge, but he played it smooth IC, with Aswon still wanting not to take the job (despite Jez knowing full well that this would be a *bad thing* ™, because Aswon has already agreed to help Aden.
The players did look like Meerkats watching tennis when the two npcs started to haggle over price with each other, and the number was getting larger and larger – that definitely through them for a loop!
Eventually though, they agreed to the job, got the details and the stones, and headed back to the craft. After the first (of many) curveballs thrown at them where Mr Shiroi’s agents immediately start trying to cheat and gain advantage, they then realised that they need to sort out some fuel.
We were almost at the end of play, and rather than going around each player one by one as they called each contact in turn, I told them I would add a bunch of stuff to the writeup to signify their success and results, depending on how much cash they threw at their contacts and ‘friends of friends’ and fill in any details at the start of the week as needed.
So, I’ve been busy working away on a bunch of smuggler bases, most of them with their own little twists and flavours, that will lead to side plots they can choose to engage with or ignore to crack on with the main job – it will be interesting to see how they decide to go. There’s at least 3 bases they haven’t got a lead on yet, so they do need to fill in the gaps a bit, or they may choose to try and fly commercial for a bit using their fake IDs and transponders – which may work for a bit, but will leave a paper trail for their enemies to follow.

The notes for this week are a bit more shambolic and cryptic than usual due to the huge amounts of dialogue (especially as it was NPC dialogue spoken by someone else, so I couldn’t even just put a couple of key phrases in to remind myself what I’d said / been thinking…)
Still, here it is:
1. Date: Tuesday 7/9/2060, Location: 35.66934, 139.69638, Time: 00:01
2. Jamming field goes up, Marius / Hunter EW vs 4s, 5+ successes, Mobile transmitters around the park, must have a vehicle power supply. 3+ It's a distributed field around multiple angles, 2+ it's a flux 5-6 field, with cyclic jamming,
3. Shiroi gestures for team to introduce themselves. Mr Kuro looks on.
4. Mr Shiroi (white / Neil, Ruymo, Japanese, Yakuza) and Mr Kuro (black, Nuz, Lung, Chinese, Triads)
5. Mr Kuro - hope travel was smooth and uneventful. I'm Mr K, this is my associate.
6. Shiroi - please approach. Kai does introductions. Aswon takes cookies from Tads, passes to Kai. Kai passes cookies over as a gift.
7. Mr K - perhaps share them amongst your team, they look like they've been up many hours. Aswon - deep respectful bow. K - leave them on the bench.
8. Kai - should we come back after your game? Kuro - no, it's fine, we've been playing a long time. Your move mr Shiroi - much honour, places piece. Mr K - reminds me of a game with chen, during the building of the wall, much taxing.
9. Mr K to aswon, how far have you travelled then? A - across the ocean. Mr K - did it take long. A - many hours, smooth, exciting at the end.
10. Mr S - so you like to travel then? A - oh yes. A - I like smooth journies. Mr S - excitement can be a fun pursuit though. Mr K - journey is often the reward. Kai - journies iwth this team are always interesting. Snarky comment from Tads
11. Mr S - it is said that even a sea breeam loses it flavour when eaten alone
12. Mr K - a good garnish can improve anything
13. Banter back and forth between K and S
14. Kai - as I understand it, you're in need of some people to do some travelling. Mr K - you could say that, my associate and I have a long standing discussion, a contest if you will. We seek some impartial....help with. Mr S - Indeed. Ones such as yourselves have no leaning either way. References the game to Kai, you seem to be studying. Have you played much? Kai - just 2-3 games. Mr S - so you know the premise? Kai I think so. But this is not the one with the horses and the castles is it?"
15. Mr K - looking to expand the board, bit of travel, sure a team like you could manage it - a walk in the park.
16. Kai - you honour us with your words, I'm sure we can rise to your expectations
17. Mr S - fantastic. Kai - I'm always one for adventure. Mr S - but you're the leader, yes? Kai - I hold the money, but it's more a technicality than a position.
18. Mr S - we have no desires for your other leanings to be 'barren'. Mr K - yes, we don't want you to be at a disadvatnage, it would be rude not to share resources. Maybe you'd like to hear what we'd like you to do for our task.
19. Aswon to Kai - should we talk time first? Kai - can you give us a time frame.
20. Mr S - do you have other engagements? Kai, yes, we have other arrangements with people that live on mountains, that press hard.
21. Mr K - not a complex task, but will take a bit of travel. It will take a few days to complete, but we do have a time they have to start the job
22. Mr S - it shouldn't take more than a week
23. Mr K - starts in 3 days, at full moon, must finish in one month from then. Aswon who are we competing with
24. Mr K - you're not competing, your independent / unbiased - the game is between my esteemed colleague and myself.
25. Aswon - we're helping to resolve contention then. Mr S - levelling the playing field. Kai - we do like things like that. Mr S - perhaps when you're done we cna have a game of go. Kai - it would be an honour, providing we're still able to play of course. Mr S - we have the utmost faith in you.
26. Kai - I think we can fit this in. Game continues in the background.
27. Mr S - back in 1787, I believe that was the counter for this move.
28. Marius - what is the direction of travel. Mr K - it's relatively local,
29. Aswon - the americas may be a problem. Mr S - are this an issue for you? Aswon - we have prior committments, that may be dishonouring that. Back and forth subtly. Mr K - long stare at ASwon, restate the job. Inside your capabilities - make up your mind soon. Rely on you or someone else.
30. Mr S - if you give us details of your other task, we can see if they co-exist, but when it rains, the ground hardens.
31. Kai - we have a deal with a drgaon that wants an evil thing dealing with it. Mr K - go over there, sit discuss, then come back. Mr S - just remember
32. Team discuss - Tads and ASwon want to go back to Aden, Shimazu - pushing the technicality. Marius - Adens job is where? Back to Aden, then Tashkent. Travel times means they can't do Adens job before this one starts.Marius rolls dragons - suspects great dragons or crime bosses with backing, possibly free spirits. Second dragon roll - get an idea for Dragon time spans, also recover the technicallity of the agreement. Tads really not happy, but won't object.
33. Team return to Mr K and Mr S. Cunning move. Quite perplexed. Of course, take the time you need. So - have you discussed? Kai - we have, we will be happy to do the job. But we need to do this and go to our prior arrangement, gentlemen on a mountain near Tehran. So Aden - I can't say his name, but you just didn't. Nameless horror. Noble goal - we wouldn't want to take you from that unnecssarily. In fact, maybe we could show how much you wanted to do the job, putting in a good word. Sure it won't be an issue.
34. Kai - well, we're happy to be part of your game then... (aswon flinches). Mr K details mission, and objective.
35. Kai - will there be killing. Expect you to Defend the tokens
36. Talk about how to plant the tokens - magical or mundane - mundane finding
37. Tads - how much lead time do we have? A month
38. Talk about the numbers - 4, 4 is a little low, how about 6 - no, 6 is a bad number, How about 43? 43 seems significantly higher, too high, maybe 9? How about 14 - oh yes,
39. Mr K - pull out a bag, puts 7 tokens from the board, pass to Mr S, 7 white tokens, hands back. Give to Kai, also hands over the list of locations.
40. Mr S starts pay discussion. Starting bid 500K. Mr K - 575K, S - 600k, nice round number. K - 6 is a bad number. 700k. S 825 - 7 is a number that favours you. Mr K - I know 9's upset you, so how about .. Kai, how are you feeling? Kai - luckier than I've ever been before! Mr S - 1 million, a vlaue from the turn of the century
41. Talk about accommodation, they will host them - how many, 7 - 6? Vadim? We can get rid of him? No, not 6, that's fine.
42. Kai - can you help with fuel costs out there? Mr K - introductions would be possible, Mr S - if we can have your numbers? Kai - oh yes! Passes over card / details.
43. Mr K - as it's late in the day, perahps we should continue our game and let you be on your way. Call in the enforcers. Kai thanks the two old men, Mr S - it's been our pleasure. Mr K - may you travel far, fast, well.
44. Heading back to the tilt wing - perception check. Passes the card over to Aswon, bowing and retreat,
45. Check on the card with the co-ords, locations 1>14 in order, placement instructions.
46. Start looking at fuel ranges and routes, contacts etc, Kai rolling smuggling routes - pump contacts
47. Aswon checks card, Hokidata, passes to Kai - Kai contacts via Hunter
48. Digital Flower, expecting your call, we can help, ask for details on route - team advises NO, FUCK NO. Kai being circumspect. Arrange first fuel stop, for normal pay, negotiate on the way back
49. Shimazu, Aswon, Kai, Marius (Mossad) 40K slush fund for the group.

So, a couple of changes this week, with a little chopped off, and some extra info added in, and a bit of rearrangement to help the narrative flow a little better. Nothing too major though.

Also, here’s the brief given to the two NPCs, to try and bring them up to speed on what their roles entailed:
NPC spot for Shadowrun game
Afternoon both! I’m hoping you’d be interested and willing in helping out a little with two NPC spots for my Tuesday night Shadowrun game.
The players are just coming to the end of the current arc, and are about to head off for a new job they’ve been offered, in Japan – where they will meet your characters.
I think we’ve got 2-3 weeks left in the current location, before they arrive and are ready to meet – but I wanted to make sure you were happy to take part, and give you chance for any questions.
What I’m after
Probably in 3-4 weeks, to be available on Discord on a Tuesday evening, probably around 7:30-7:45 for perhaps up to an hour. There would be myself, and the 6 players from the game on the call. I’d describe and set the scene, and then they come up and interact with you. As long as the main plot points for the job get conveyed, I’m happy for you to improvise away and own the role, and give the players as hard or easy a time as you want.
The players:
1. Kai, team leader – Andrew Forrest
2. Aswon, sniper/mystic – Jez Lawrence
3. Marius, driver/mechanic – Lee Minshull
4. Tads, shaman – Ali Cooper
5. Shimazu, bodyguard/ninja – Tom Poole
6. Hunter, spy/hacker – Justin Poole
Everyone plays or used to at the LT, so you’ll potentially have met them at some point or might know them by face… not that it matters. But you should definitely give Fozzy a hard time, just because… (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)
Roles
One of you will play “Lung”, and the other “Ryumyo”. You are both Great Eastern Dragons – and probably both in the “top twenty most powerful beings in the world…” 
I think you can both play either role, but thought you might want to look and decide between you who plays who, depending on the background info and how you feel about it and what inspires you.
Backgrounds
Lung
Lung is a Male Great Eastern Dragon whose primary interest is in China and the Pacific Ring of Fire. He is described as ruby red with gold highlights. In his true form, Lung is several hundred feet long. He typically takes a metahuman form of a Chinese human dressed in Mandarin robes or business attire. While he does not have one official translator, he has a whole "family" of metahumans that act as his spokespeople. His primary lair is the T'ai Shan Mountain, Shandong, China. It is rumored that he is the leader of several Triads, most notably the Red Dragon Triad. He is described as a reclusive and patient dragon who tends to plan and manipulate things in the shadows, slowly spreading his domain rather than taking aggressive actions.
Lung has a great interest in "dragon lines", or mana lines, and takes great lengths to control or manipulate these mana lines. His manipulation of the mana lines will prevent the natural disasters that fell on the Pacific Ring of Fire during the upcoming “Year of the Comet” from affecting mainland China, the same natural disasters that will decimate Japanese-controlled territory.
There is some more info found at: https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Lung
Ryumyo
Ryumyo was the first dragon to be seen by Metahumanity after he awoke in Mt. Fuji on Dec. 24th 2011. His first journey took him to the largest Shinto-shrine in Japan near the city of Ise. He also visited the monastery Enryaku-ji, one of the most famous buddhistic temples, on Mt. Hiei near Kyoto. After that he wasn´t seen for a while. Ryumyo has silvery scales and striking red thorns on his back. Ryumyos operations are based in Japan. He has great influence upon the Yakuza there.
Ryumyo is a firebrand favoring immediate action and he is very impatient for a dragon.
For some reason there is a lot less info at https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Ryumyo than there is for Lung…
Both Lung and Ryumyo:
The rivalry between Lung and Ryumyo has been described as the personification of Yin and Yang.
Legend has it that Ryumyo was once the apprentice of Lung, and indeed, Ryumyo was entrusted to Lung as an egg. Lung proved to be a capable teacher, and Ryumyo proved to be a gifted student.
But while Ryumyo was very talented, he was also the polar opposite of Lung in personality. Ryumyo was a firebrand favoring immediate action, while Lung was a restrained contemplative favoring patience. Ryumyo also gave himself up for servitude to the elder dragon in exchange for more knowledge and secrets, but soon came to a point when Lung could teach Ryumyo no more, save for the deepest secrets which Lung judged to be inappropriate to teach to such an emotional and impulsive pupil.
The opposing natures and the debt of servitude eventually strained the relationship to the point where they parted ways. Lung released Ryumyo from his service, and told Ryumyo that he must learn on his own, while Ryumyo accurately believed that Lung was holding back and left feeling betrayed - Ryumyo reportedly left in a fit of temper, and left a large mess that Lung was forced to clean up.
The rift between them grew larger as millennia passed. Ryumyo saw Lung as an old backstabber jealous of his youth and energy, while Lung saw Ryumyo as an emotional upstart with no self-control. These opposed personalities explain the differences in the way each of their controlled organizations achieve power. The Yakuza under Ryumyo's leadership go for big, short-term results, with violent and direct action. The Triads under Lung's leadership often take a longer-term strategy, sacrificing immediate gain for future growth.
***This next bit is in the wiki article – but refers to events in the past – these are the events that we’re actually just coming up to in our game, so the players actions set up world events (indirectly), resulting in saving millions of lives in China and devastating millions more in Japan)***
Reportedly, the manalines around the Pacific Ring of Fire were subtly manipulated around China by Lung, preventing the natural disasters that devastated Japan as a result of Ryumyo's actions, which were born either of ignorance of the manalines or arrogance from exploiting them. On the other hand, the Yakuza and Imperial Japan achieved economic and political power quickly under Ryumyo's influence, a feat that has yet to be matched by Lung's lumbering efforts.
However, the two dragons have never gained the upper hand on each other, as Ryumyo's youth and aggression is evenly matched against Lung's patience and planning.
It is said in the Far East that the more a person dislikes someone, the more polite that person will be in his presence. The two dragons are the pinnacles of courtesy and polite etiquette in each other's company. Emphasis is mine, as that’s something I really would like to play up between you during the meeting.
The Setup
When the players meet you though, you are in your Human forms, relaxing in a park at midnight, surrounded by Triad goons on one side (Lung) and Yakuza on the other (Ryumyo), playing a game of “Go”.
Both of you are trying to get control of mana lines / ley-lines in the Pacific Rim – specifically around the ring of fire. But you both know that a conflict between the Triad and Yakuza will weaken you both, and draw attention – so you have agreed to a competition or limited conflict, which is where the players come in.
During the meeting you provide the players with a number of tokens, and the instructions that they are to visit a number of locations around the ring of fire, and plant one token at each place – wedged in some tree roots, dropped in a volcanic stream, placed on top of a cairn or monolith. It must be within 1000m of the co-ordinates given, but does not need to be immediately visible. All the tokens must be placed inside one lunar month from start to finish.
Once the players have done their bits, the two dragons will send out their agents to recover the tokens – and whoever gets there first gets control of the location, without a major war. In effect it’s a gladiatorial style combat to resolve a major power struggle…
The players won’t know who you are, though two of the more experienced players (Jez and Lee) may well guess, especially based on what they are asked to do, and who is guarding you. But they won’t know for sure. And if they do suspect, they should be worried, as letting either or both of you down is a bad thing, and could see them being eaten or incinerated in a ball of fire. But no pressure…
The meeting
I have a rough idea of how I think the meeting might go, but this isn’t prescriptive – to a degree the whole idea of getting people in to do guest NPC spots is to add spontaneity and a little breath of fresh air, and keep the players on their toes – knowing they are dealing with “real people” and not the GM with a funny accent makes them work for it.
1. Meeting starts when players are ushered up to your table and spot you playing “Go”. You introduce yourselves as Mr Shiroi (translates as “White”, which is the colour of your Go pieces, Ryumyo) and Mr Kuro (translates as “Black”, Lung)
2. Make some small talk, ask the players how the journey was, talk about the weather – the standard “business meeting start”. Pay the players the agreed upon fifty-thousand Nuyen fee just for turning up…
3. Talk about the “game” in abstract terms, the use of stratagems, offensive and defensive moves, tactics and gambits. The back and forth can vary, and hopefully the players realise at some point you’re not talking about the game of Go any more, but a wider and more brutal ‘game’ between you, that probably is being played over several hundred years…
4. During the meeting, communications with the players can be quite informal, even a little laid back – but anything with each other is with exquisite courtesy and politeness, underscoring the enmity between you.
5. At random times in the meeting, either say “strange mystic things” or reference historical events, trying to emphasise that you both have forgotten more than all of the players will ever know, and you’re thousands of years old. For example when one of you mentions dropping a token into a clear stream as a suitable place, the other could say “though don’t make the same mistake as Wei Lu Han did in the year 868 – it took him days to recover from that slip into the water!” Both give a chuckle and then move on… Or one of you could say something, the other offers a response and the first then apologises for their position, or their choice of words – even if it doesn’t make sense to the people listening. Anything that gives the impression that there’s a constantly ongoing battle of words and wills, wrapped up in decades of byzantine courtesy and social convention that they can only just get a glimpse of. I want them to feel just a little out of their depth, and aware that sometimes the choice of words is the difference between a suggestion and a deadly insult.
6. During the meeting, both of you should “score” points over the other, or appear to win a point in the conversation, but it should flow back and forth with no overall winner or clearly superior position – you’re both evenly matched, and that’s why you’ve taken this unusual step of the competition, to try and limit the carnage. And even this point scoring can be abstract… maybe Lung could say “Of course, one must always be careful on the attack, not to over-extend.” To which there might be a response of “As is often told in the wisdom of ancient texts. But, we should consider the story of the snake and the apple, should we not?” And Lung would acknowledge some ancient parable or example with “Indeed, that is so, I must concede”. The players are none the wiser about what any of it means (which is good, because it’s all bollocks of course and made up between you – but they don’t KNOW that, and think it might be some meaningful dialogue!)
7. There should be some discussion between you about how many tokens will be in play, with a little back and forth. Lung won’t want to use the numbers 3,4 and 6 due to superstition – they are unlucky numbers either on their own right, or in the year of the snake (2061), and likewise Ryumyo won’t want to use 4 or 9 (or 43 – this might be a good place for a point score from Lung . Eventually though you should agree on 14.
8. At that point, you each take 7 of your white or black pieces from the board, and drop them into a “magic pouch” – which is given to the players. When the players check the bag (either there and then or later) they will have found that the tokens have “morphed” into 14 traditional ying-yang mixes of black and white, and are magically active.
9. The players will probably want to discuss price at this point for the job. The job will cost them, at a minimum 150k in fuel – so the starting point should probably be half a million Nuyen. Let them haggle with you, and you can potentially go up to a million quite happily – you’re paying them to ensure absolute neutrality in the conflict and complete discretion. At the top end, 1.5 million is as far as you’re willing to go – if they really impress you with their questions, insight, dedication or just have you wetting yourself with their respectful but stupid behaviour.
10. Saying that, don’t let them take the piss. If they are abusive or rude, dismiss them. Their reputation will take a massive hit. You don’t even need to threaten them – but turning this job down is a bad move, both because you’re very powerful, and word gets around about people who are dicks to dragons and two of the largest organised crime outfits in the world; and because they’re losing out on a “monty haul” job – this is relatively easy and designed to help them build up their bank balance for the next part of the campaign…

They players have then got a roughly 18,00km journey to drop off the 14 tokens at the locations on the list you give them. When they check the map, each one is actually an active volcano / fault-line location on the ring of fire. Neither dragon nor their respective crime gangs will interfere in any way – the actual danger comes from natural and magical creatures, and the environment.
List of locations:
1. -5.05116, 151.32711
2. -6.03682, 143.88772
3. 7.70289, 124.51483
4. 12.77065, 124.0577
5. 32.65689, 128.84845
6. 34.6848, 137.2611
7. 43.43796, 142.70088
8. 55.83263, 160.36601
9. 53.12637, -168.67578
10. 60.29268, -140.93773
11. 57.39534, -132.29918
12. 51.52503, -126.1226
13. 46.85356, -121.76271
14. 37.88322, -121.91298

If you’ve made it this far – well done, here’s a cookie and a Kren hug. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have!

[Kren Cooper]

Words 9307
Time 272 minutes
WPM 34.22

Another week done, another writeup complete. No published location for this one just yet (at least on its own - the link on page 1 to "book 6" will have the latest chapter in) - as I don't want to push them out to the two fiction sites out of order. I'm up to episode 35 on the list though, and I started pushing them up to Facebook at episode 38 - so from that point they should just need copying and pasting, rather than editing and proofing - so they should go a lot faster.

Having accepted the job from Rhumyo and Lung, the players departed Japan and headed to the RV with their weapon smuggler contact, offloading the mortar system and ammo, and picking up some supplies in return. With that done, they then started their legit phase, flying to Okinawa and then down to the Philippines, before dropping off the radar and heading in to the first smuggler stop.

A little disappointed that they're not going for the smuggler bases I've set up(at least not yet), but hey - free will and player agency and all that. Besides, the craft has some tags on it now, showing locations, heading and speed, which may come back to haunt them later...

They've also run into a problem with fuel ranges because they haven't contacted the relevant contacts who can help them out - leading to them having to improvise some double fuel hops and use up their cargo bay. They're going to get a few more stops put in as I want them to be able to make it, but they've already realised that in several places they're entirely reliant on a fuel stop working with them and filling them up - and if they piss off the owners, they could get stranded.

So, next week we should be ok for the flight over to Papa New Guinea and the savage Anzac occupied territory there, where they'll come across the impact of the "Sorcery Act" and a population with a pretty dark and distressing approach to sexual relations. Adult themes ahoy! Hopefully though, nothing too bad needs to be "on screen", and it can be left to their imaginations - but as I was reading up about PPNG on wikipedia, it made my mind boggle to read things like "23% of the adult male population admitted to having raped someone..." a reminder that standards vary wildly around the world.

With any luck though they'll keep a low profile, get the job done and then get out of there, and start volcano hopping all the way up and around the ring of fire - and we can queue the menagerie of paracritters, free spirits, freak weather and clouds of bloodsucking flies I have lined to up enhance their roleplay experience...

As usual, here are the notes from the session:
Date: Tuesday 7/9/2060, Location: 35.66934, 139.69638, Time: 05:00

1. Aswon - are we stopping at digital flower, I don't like it. Marius - could be unrelated. Aswon - don't believe it. MArius - could be a test, could be cheating.
2. Kai - head for digital flower, but then wave off, and say next meeting has moved, abort
3. Stealth of 10, spirit concealment, heading south, evade local traffic and outpace it, out over the water past the airport
4. Kai makes decent charisma check / etiquette to wave off from the base.
5. Arrive at Miyake Island about 10 minutes to dawn, head for the ship - spot the natori. Marius puts down fine on the stern
6. Shouting from crew, something has landed on us. Captain coming.
7. Captain arrives, bow, Aswon bows more - says hello - gets a 9 on one dice.
8. Introductions - we have cargo to swap, hello I am aswon. Hunter and Tads stay on the chopper. Kai on overwatch.
9. Hoover box and other stuff to crossload. Dawn, clear the helipad, resummon, mountain spirits for most, wind spirit for Marius,
10. Head for okinawa, SW, about 3 hours flight time 1450km,
11. Flight plan check into okinawa is ok - ID check passed. Computer check vs 4s, 3 success from Hunter - ok to land just in time. Heading for Ukuda airport - landing ok
12. Get through the gear list. Working out routing to get to PPNG. Kai - plan to buy fuel and take with, establish fuel caches
13. talking about getting 1.5t of fuel to carry a double load.
14. Hunter research - needs additional paperwork to fly into the occupied zone of the phillipines
15. Flight plan - Okinawa>Legazpi Domestic airport - ID check ok, 1486km, 3 hours, Hunter takes 2 hours to do (4 successes)
16. Customs inspection coming with security guard - 3-4 minutes notice, hide the weapon racks, Aswon assenses - not magical.
17. Aswon suggests story - medical plants from PPNG, Kai just doing a medical supply run. Ask tads for illusion on the inside as a medical transport. Inspectors fail perception check - want to see the flight plan, Hunter comes - disgust, refuse to look, pantomine looking at the details.
18. Flight plan for Palau and head for Sarangani, ID check ok, loop around 1400km, flight plan ok, loop ok
19. Land on east side of sarang, near small jetty, beach landing, huts above high water line, landing about 15:30
20. Kui Hai Loo, small philippino, black hair, knife scar on neck, big barang. Concealment is down.Kai gets out to greet. Aswon suggests Shimazu stay onboard, aswon goes, "you have landing permit?"
21. "Not really, but happy to pay", "how many ruins you want to check", "not familiar with the term", "you don't want to dig", "mr harry wu recommended you", "ahh - ok. how long do you want to stay - and do you have goods to trade?" No - but we can do transport." "500 nuyen landing fee, come to the big house to sort out the details.
22. Hunter weather check - monsoons due tomorrow or day after

And a few notes on what they found / got hold of / landed on - especially if you want to see why Aswon (Jez) made comments about the ship...
Mr Hu also called, he can arrange for a cargo ship to be at anchor on the east side of Miyake Island, 180km due south of Tokyo on the morning of the 7th up until 7am, for the drop off of the heavy equipment. He has some supplies for them to collect - 10 each of smoke arrows, taser heads (6M stun) and some dikoted ripper broadheads (+1 P,+1 DL, causes 10L additional on tearout), 1 litre of compressed Neuro-Stun VII, 10 rounds of shotgun AV, 10 rounds of shotgun shatter

The ship is the Natori (https://www.fleetmon.com/vessels/natori_9729788_10377356/)
21m wide, 136m long, 5m draught, 13kn cruise, 548 TEU, commanded by Captain Ito Sarosi, a fifteen year vet.


Route
Japan - Taiwan - Philippines - PNG - Philipines - Taiwan - Japan - Yakut - Athabaskan Council - Timshin - Salish - UCAS - Salish - Tir Tangire - Calfree

[Kren Cooper]

Session 159 complete and sent out to the players – still working through the backlog for posting to the two fiction sites, but the master document has been updated (link on page 1).

So, this week they started off at the Sarangani free port and were offered a simple little job to go earn the good graces of their host. There was scepticism that turned to horror from most of the players, as Kai started to nod and agree before he’d even heard what the job was of course, and then actual relief when they found out it was a 2km walk and talk to some people about late payment.
So, into the jungle they go, and time to roll on my jungle encounter chart – and they get a benign colour/flavour encounter, so a flying lemur to study for a moment. Then, without a furry shadow dogging their steps, they headed in to talk to Professor Frank Cox from Cambridge Uni, and his bunch of hippy students. After flexing at the woefully unprepared and miniscule threat archaeologists, they headed back down the path to get back to camp with the payment. This time as they hit the 1km mark, they weren’t so lucky and ran into a Banded Krait – and then Aswon gets a massive handful of nothing on his perception test and nearly steps on it, forcing Hunter and Kai to default to extreme violence. Then I took advantage of the slightly exploded corpse and the fact that Aswon wanted to cook it to get some blood on the NPC Vadim, so I could deploy the “cloud of flies” encounter, and introduce them to horrible things laying eggs into their flesh, as a warning of what was to come.
Still, they dealt with that ok, met some more wildlife, chatted with the NPC and made some etiquette rolls and RP happen, so he introduces them to another contact, which will help them get all the way across to Papa New Guinea. This does make their double fuel planning unnecessary, but does give them a good safety margin though.
Tomorrow night should be a simple enough flight to Arkan Port, then they have a choice of either stopping to socialise, or pressing on to get to near the first drop point. Stopping to socialise here gets them a weapons dealer contact (potentially) – pushing on gives them more time with the smugglers at the next stop, but comparatively a worse environment to wait in (not that they know that…)

Here’s the notes from the session:

• Date: Tuesday 7/9/2060, Location: 5.44443, 125.49474, Time: 15:30
• Shimazu heads back to the chopper, rest of team go to the big house with Kui Hai.
• Rustic cabin, dirty inside, smelly, many parties.
• Marius heads back to the chopper to to check up on it pre monsoon.
• KH - so Mr Wu sent you to see me - but you didn't bring me anything? Kai - er, no sorry, were we supposed to? We have truffles?
• KH - so what do you need? K, fuel, rest, no trouble. WE are in the shipment business.
• KH - depends how trustworthy you are - and at the moment, not a lot. K - fair, trust must be earnt
• KH - glad you said that, something you can help me with me. Team not paying for their dig. K - very rude.
• K - do you have co-ords, can we get their by chopper. KH - yes, no not really.
• KH - give co-ords, about 2k inland, up a trail. Asks if they have knives. Sell some old Barangs for 25 Nuyen each
• Kai calls in Marius to provide aerial support, get Vadim to bring Tads weapon foci.
• Aswon asks if Vadim+Tads will do an astral scout, Marius is prepping dalmation
• Spotted by the professer, hello, Tads greets - just passing through, gets a bit of a read on him. "have a good afternoon", leaves. Advises Vadim on how not to get spotted...
• Aswon rethinks having the drone along. Marius suggests it arrives at the same time as they get there. Work out time to get there with drone - have it prepped ready for launch.
• Team grab water and knives, then head into the jungle. Kai and Aswon spot the lemur - assense, hungry and curious, normal critter. Hunter zoo roll, gets some ideas. Botany roll - small fruit to feed it. Aswon thinks can they use them as attack lemurs to plague the camp. Tads creates some food on the floor. Lemur spots and does glide down, grabs one and then scarpers. Team move on, stealth to camp, good rolls, Aswon and Hunter pick up ultrasound repellent field. Hear the sounds of camp, chitchat, Frank=burnt food.
• Aswon checks for magical compounds - gets a 10, looks at talismongering, 1 success.
• Cox, sweating, florid face, dicky bow,
• "Mr Kai, come to ask you if there's a problem with payment". outrage, beach scoundrel, why should we pay. Back and forth. Not cricket - what would yoiu know about cricket? Verbal agreement - dangerous place. Are you theatening me? I'm from well known uni - which one? Cambridge - oh, not the other one. Bristles.
• Kai - step away from the dig, don't want to disturb them, under the gaze of the gods, (drone heads in), call in the rest of the team,
• Aswon masks himself but not the spear, holding gun.
• Bring drone in through canopy, hover over the camp, students fall back to the professor.
• Vadim starts to gather energy, lets shamanic mask shows.
• Kai - sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my heavily armed vector thrust drone! Are you threatening me? I wasn't, but I am now...
• Kai leadership - beats the prof, he goes off to get a credstick Kai tells the rest to get back to work, backchat from ricky, Hunter red dot on his head, passed WP check. Kai commanding voice - back to work. Prof comes out with credstick, eyes to the floor.
• Is this 5k - yes, yes, it's all there. What date does this take you to? Another few days and we'll be gone.
• Back out in the jungle, down the path.
• Krait - spotted by all but Aswon, Reaction check - Gus shoots with single shot, Kai the same, Aswon dives to the side, snake blown in half. Tads spots the lemur broken and spasmed body on the floor.
• Aswon gathers the remains of the corpse to cook on the beech later.
• Vadim gets bitten, starts to get irate, make it down to the beach. Vadim bitten half a dozen times, aswon checks the water, spots the shark, about 1m long, shark goes bubble and swims back, vadim washes a bit further down.
• Kai hands over credstick, "any problems" - explains, tell about Banded Krait,
• Aswon cooks snake - 21,8,5
• Notice Kui Hai never puts down weapon.
• Negotiate with Tads for create water. wants bottles.
• Delivery to colonel Sawoon accepted - refuel in the morning 7500 - expensive but reasonable for location, head to Arkan
• Vadim has his wounds bled, gets the gunk out, angry Xcuts, Tads heals

And the background notes:


Sarangani Free Port, Philipines
Small sea port, used by various research agencies and vessels to study archaeological digs nearby. Pottery and earthernware dating back to pre BC times
Huk stronghold, raiders on fast boats, mixed in with research vessels. Achaelogical digs nearby as civilian cover / aura of respectability
Kui Hai Loo - Phillipino pirate / trader, lives in a big log built cabin on the shores, a little north of the harbour
Expeditions from the DIMR, Atlantean Foundation and several other research groups pay to berth here and explore the buried temples and locations in the interior.

Quick job for rep - convince the researchers from Cambridge Uni that are looking for ancient remains to pay up their overdue fees - they owe 5k for their dig permit, and if they don't pay by the end of the week, Kui will "send the boys in". If the players do well though, they'll earn points with him.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Expedition of one professor and 9 students at a small dig site, camping next to the ruins. The Professor (Frank Cox, 48, Human, essence 5.5 (datajack, headware ram, display link) is an uninitiated sorcerer with ok skills (Sorc 4, Heal, Catalog, Detect Magic, Levitate, Makeover, Clout, Detox, Antidote, Determine Age, Mend) and a bunch of hipster students (Kevin, Ricky, Debbie, Vanessa, Phoenix, Patience, Manuel, Claude, Fillipe), some with a magical interest, some piloting some research drones. Can go with intimidation, mind control or drone net seisure - any will do.

Animals: Philippine Tube-Nosed Fruit Bat, Civet Cats, Palawan Bearded Pig, Philippine Flying Lemur, Centipese Pangolins, Flying Dragons, Terrible Claw Lobster, Bubble Sharks
Danger: Blue Ring octopus, Red back spiders, Saltwater crocs, 14 of 179 snakes, including Philippine Cobra and Krait, Mosquitos

Getting them to pay up will give +rep with Kui, unlock refuelling at normal prices and may lead to him offering a delivery job to Arkan base and Colonel Sawoon

[Kren Cooper]

No smuggler session 160 yet - no game this week due to player absence. At least that gave me a bit more time to work on the locations for the players to be dropping stuff off at for the upcoming "magical delivery" arc

They're still in the window of "before the job starts", and are working their way down to the starting point - two more fuel stops and it should be relatively easy to get to the east end of Papa New Guinea. Then, as soon as they hit the full moon and the lunar cycle starts - off we go! 14 stops, about 18 thousand klicks, a bunch of new smuggler stops to interact with, and a handful of random encounters, some scripted/timed events and long distance calls from Nadia to Marius to update him on how much the baby is kicking.

Here's the current list of what I have planned - as ever comments and feedback are welcome! There should be a mix between skill checks, fights, diplomacy, moral decisions, investigation and negotiation that hopefully each one feels reasonably different and keeps the challenge level up for the team.


1. -5.05116, 151.32711: Volcano #1- Uluwan, Papa New Guinea
Challenge - natural elements, bad weather, skill checks: With the start of the monsoon season hitting with a vengence, the players will encouter awful weather as they approach the volcano. St Elmos Fire affects the screens and instruments, giving steadily mounting modifiers to navigation if they continue to try and fly. They will encounter ball lightning in the area, making for randomly moving threats that must be avoided. In the middle of the encounter, they will also find Storm spirits / Thunderbirds around the peak during the height of the monsoon, revelling in the charged atmosphere. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9) Tilt wing base handling=5, minus VCR 2 rating = 3s. Weather will contribute +2 to +4, Terrain will vary from Open to Tight giving +0 to +3 giving tests in the 5-10 range. Test one - base approach, bad/open=5s, test two - midpoint, bad/restricted=
6s, test three at the peak, terrible/tight=10s

2. -6.03682, 143.88772: Volcano #2 - Mount Giluwe, Papa New Guinea
Challenge - neutral non-human NPC to persuade / diplome with. Still during bad weather most likely, but not to the same effect as #1, the players will be able to close on the location and plant the token, but will encounter a curious free spirit, which will move or throw the marker away. It needs to be bargained with, and persuaded to leave the marker alone - but will want to know all about the reason why they and the markers are here. Mostly likelky they will resort to a karma bribe (it needs only a small amount) to achieve their aim - but storytime is also an option. The spirit may decide to stay with them if they are "too" generous or "interesting", wanting to travel with them and making a bit of a pain in the arse of itself.

3. 7.70289, 124.51483: Volcano #3 - Mount Piapayungan, Phillipines
Japanese mining consortium are crawling all over the volcano, prospecting for sulpher manganese and other chemicals for extraction, and have security to defend against Huk rebels and rival firms, and will assume the players are here to steal their resources
4. 12.77065, 124.0577: Volcano #4- Bulusan, Phillipines
Area infested with salamanders of various sizes
5. 32.65689, 128.84845: Volcano #5 - Fukue Island, Japan
Arriving on an exceptionally clear day/night, which coincides with an astronomical event means the volcano is heaving with people with telescopes and cameras, and the nearby observatory is fully manned - chances of being spotted are incredibly high
6. 34.6848, 137.2611: Volcano #6 - Zaozan, Japan
Four shinto priests are rededicating the shrine, along with a number of swordsmiths and local businessmen. They insist the team not be there that particular night as it will pollute their mojo, asking for a 12 hour delay to the team. Swordsmiths thank Shimazu for "bringing the sword home", ask him to give it up...possible lightning rod sword effects?
7. 43.43796, 142.70088: Volcano #7 - Tokachidake, Japan
If the team played nice at #6, then respectful and helpful ancient spirits give them a blessing and send them on their way. If not, then angry and vengeful spirits all around, targeting the players out of spite. The players have to "cleanse" their auras with local deeds if need be...
8. 55.83263, 160.36601: Volcano #8 - Mount Ostry Tolbachik, Russia
Shapeshifter eagles and rocs, volcano buzzards - a whole platoon of flying shifters including magical support who will take offence at their presence and have at them
9. 53.12637, -168.67578: Volcano #9 - Nikolski, Fox Islands
A team of talismongers out scouring the volcano - initially hostile, they can be talked around if they realise the team are not after their supplies. A threat 2 shadowrunner team from Seattle? Tiny, Nikolai/Musashi, Swoop, Jawa, Brother, (si's thief) [These are all characters from our "pink mohawk" world, that the players should recognise, even if the characters dont... I have no problem with the occasional 4th wall break!]
10. 60.29268, -140.93773: Volcano #10 - Mount St Elias, Alaska
A single native on a vision quest - feels the area is in danger, but can't say from action or inaction. Wants the players to guide and advise him on which of the two forces should be helped to find the token, +5/-5 karma when volcanoes go for good/bad advice
11. 57.39534, -132.29918: Volcano #11 - Mount Ratz, UCAS
Mitsahama border patrol have been forced down during bad weather, pranged their bird and are awaiting rescue. Heavily armed and armoured, they will try to seize the players and their craft. Rebels in the area as future contact
12. 51.52503, -126.1226: Volcano #12 - Silverthrone Mountain, UCAS
A youngish western dragon, Ice Maiden, has her lair here, and will want to know what the players are up to and why. Eco-friendly, she has the support of some local spirits and shamans, and lairs here to keep an eye on Tsimshin and what's going on there.
13. 46.85356, -121.76271: Volcano #13 - Mount Rainier, UCAS
A bunch of chaotic evil lava elementals will try to take out the steam-bags invading their territory - just because.
14. 37.88322, -121.91298: Volcano #14 - Mount Diablo, Calfree
There's nothing here. It's a cake-walk. Nothing of note. Lots of tension though... and suspicion. This is their freebie to finish on an easy note.

[Kren Cooper]

This weeks update is published and can be found from the link on page 1 - book six updated and the start text is "Date: Wednesday 8/9/2060, Location: 5.44443, 125.49474, Time: 08:00"

The players landed at Arkan Port and ran into my weapons dealer there, along with his parking lot full of expensive but cool toys. Diplomacy checks were made, and Aswon stayed hidden, so all is cool. They made a few small purchases and have worked out that he's a good potential source of APDS / AV ammo, once they get to know him a bit better.

Not much in the way of action really, it was mostly about showing them someone with lots of toys, them wondering if they could steal them, and then seeing even more toys and wondering if it was a good idea after all....

These are the vehicles / drones I put in place at Arkan, using names of South African arms companies I found via t'internet:
Noteable vehicles and equipment at Arkan:

• 2 X Denel Patrol Boat: as per GMC Riverine security variant (P161) but with Speed 100, Sensors 2/1 and armed with an Armscor Minigun in AA turret, Drone rack with a Denel Graaf-Reinet,
• 3 X Armscor ATV: as per Thundercloud Pinto (P158) with Body 3 and 2 ring mount Armscor stinger LMGs for the 2 passengers, one per side
• 4 X Denel Graaf-Reinet Vector drones: like a CD Dalmation (p177) with depth charges (2)
• 2 X Protechnik Riot Van - a take on the Ares Mobmaster (p170) with sensors 2,
• 3 X Truvelo Armoury recon tanks: as per LAV-103 (p163), with Sensor 4, Battletac IVIS, Medium turret with Armscor Hammerfall cannon in a heavy recoil mount
• 8 X Sandock-Austral Lightning: version of the Steel Lynx (p173) with speed 30, Accel 3, Body 3, Armour 12, Armscor HMG
• 1 X Denel Corvette: Handle 3, Speed 50(25), Accel 5, Hull 2, Bulwark 2, Sig 4/4, Auto 4, Pilot 0, Sensor 4/4, Cargo 100 (1800 PS), Load 1250 (25,000 PS), Seating NA, Entry 2h+2d, Fuel 10,000 litres, Econ 0.25km/l, Cost 12.5m
• Small naval gun (100 rounds), 2 rear mounted Armscor HMGs
• The armoury - contains Pistols, SMGs, Assault rifles and Shotguns from Denel, Armscor and Truvelo Armoury companies. Armscor tend to be heavier and have -1 power, but be very well designed for dirt / dust resistance. Denel are precision made marksman weapons, and are less dirt resistant, while having -20% ammo capacity, and Truvelo tend to be lightweight, giving a -1 recoil mod in use.
• There are also copious ammo supplies for small arms, including APDS and AV - the Colonel will only sell 10 X (current rep) in rounds total to the team, of whatever type.
• All of the guns have been added to my weapons master spreadsheet for tracking, and to keep broadening the scope of what's available for particular types of jobs.

As usual, here's the notes from the game session:

1. Fuel up ok, 4X4 with 3Kl bowser, deliver fuel ok. Long grey weather front to the east. Aswon asks Tads if she can summon a storm spirit to protect them. Fills up craft to uncomfortable levels
2. Tads summons F5 storm spirit, 4 services, takes M drain
3. Kai - can we fly over the storm? Marius - maybe, depends on the weather.
4. Tads -is it worth suggesting that Kui hai get bottles in for when we come back? Aswon - no, he wants chemically pure / sealed stuff. Tads - eugh.
5. Team ready to go, strap in and get ready for takeoff. Tads asks when Aswon wants to watch - he will watch at the Arkan port as he needs to stay inside. Tads relaxes, Kai watches,
6. Hunter - start at midnight on the day - local time? Aswon - yeah, local=myfic
7. Kai checks that no POD is required. No problem
8. Head S-E-E, Tom rolls for a random encounter, perception checks - Marius spots a bunch of targets travelling at 80-90kph, Shimazu spots half a dozen creatures with active magic coming... Kai goes to Port door, Aswon to starboard,
9. Albatross, 6-7m wingspan, doing dips and climbs, Marius spots them leaving hot trenches in the water behind them . Paranormal animal checks, Aswon a partial, - storm albatross, Hunter electronics check - spotting little kicks in the instruments. Marius heads up for 5000m to go over them. Aswon wonders if they're on an intercept course. Marius veers south, they give a threat display with mini balls of lightning, but then leave the team alone.
10. Complete loss of visibility, clouds to about 7500m, storm spirit smooths the journey, eerie silence. Get Vadim to study the storm spirit. Out of the cloud bank, drop down to sea level, head in to Arkan port.
11. Get into the bay, spot huge fish, ID as whale sharks, Shimazu assenses - not magically active, - are picking up fear/alarm.
12. Kai alerts contact they are inbound - response "air or sea?" responds Air,
13. Fly in, spot the corvette. Team speculate on if they should consider stealing it...along with the captain.
14. Team fly in, not detected by Radar. Description of the fort, message "land and we'll meet you",
15. Aswon botches merc operations rolls - "french foreign legion" - you got a delivery? Yes, 8 boxes. Call for the van
16. English checks - south african, very definitely. Recheck merc ops - south african mercenaries?
17. Riot vehicle comes out... door opens, Shimazu spots bodyguard operations,
18. Colonel comes out - who is in charge. Introduce himself, invites them to stay for dinner. Kai says on a schedule. Come in for drinks and check the cargo. Leave the team to hump the boxes in.
19. Kai, Hunter and Shimazu hump boxes back and forth, spot the rest of the armoury in the courtyard
20. CS - so, you sure you won't stay for dinner? Kai - no, schedule - but if this is the stuff you want, maybe we can come back sometime.
21. CS offers trades for gear in exchange for luxuries
22. Examine the drones and tanks - at least one gen behind the curve. Astrally defended by multiple F3 wards.
23. Finish unloading the goods, all ok - ask how much fuel they want. Wince, ok. Try and sell again, leads them down to the armoury
24. 1k for armscor shotgun, 1.5k for 50 X apds assault rifle, 36 smoke grenades =2k, confirms that he does have AV 50 cal, 500 Nuyen for 2 uniforms 2/2
25. food and drink laid out in the courtyard. Guns back to the tilt-wing, bug scan - clean. Kai ask about the story for the place -
26. describes, asks for warning for fuel if they come back
27. Takeoff, Marius perception check on takeoff - corvette, no VLS, does have gun -
28. Summoning F5 Storm Spirit, 3 Successes, took 2 boxes stun, box 1 = 15 mins, box 2 = 12 minutes, so 27 minutes to normal, 15 mins to ignore stun.
29. Computer check for Lae - 1,4,4,5,5

A bit late posting this week - we're slightly out of our normal routine (to say the least) as we got our new puppy on Saturday, so we spent 8 hours driving and waiting for him on the saturday, and a lot of time sunday getting him settled into the house, working out what puppy proofing we need to do and doing more walking in a day than I normally do in a week (which is kinda the point from my POV)
Puppy - if you want to see him is here

Also, have published up to chapter 66 on the fan fic sites, so still working through the backlog to get up to date.

[Kren Cooper]

Good afternoon all,
Episode 160 is now published, and can be found in Book 6, updated at https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0.
This week was a bit of a strange one. Both I and Tads were shattered, having had a long day Saturday picking up our new puppy and driving home, then adapting to living with a blond moulting machine and changing our language so every second sentence is either “put that down!”, “that’s not yours!” or “what have you got there!”, and several of the other players also seemed a bit wiped out – so there was more chit-chat than usual, and less focus on the game.
But, the players flew over to their final smuggler stop, to get into position for the first two drops once the timer starts on the mission, and ran into “Gwok” the smuggler, who immediately set them to the challenge of going to mutilate some random shop-keep for not giving him enough respect. Gwok is a “nasty” NPC, and this stop is designed to reinforce /remind the players of how awful some of the shadow scene is, and how brutal life can be, bringing a little bit of grim-dark to their lives as a counterpoint for some of the nicer / more co-operative NPCs they’ve dealt with.
Hopefully nothing too in their face, but the world of Shadowrun is not all lightness and ponies, and sometimes you have to make tough calls or decide just how white or black your hats are. I was a little surprised when Kai took / accepted the mission so quickly during the meeting, but he quickly made his feelings known once they were back together.
Not much more to say really on this one – Tuesday will be interesting to see if they do decide to try and fool Gwok with some kind of scam, or if they’re just going to blow the contact and leave. With this bunch, it’s hard to tell!

As usual, here are the notes – slightly more chaotic than normal I imagine (sorry!)
1. 1455km from Arkan port to Lae
2. Discussion about the intel - not want to stay in the area, warlords, oppression, do we look for intel on the area, do we go to Hunter's Ares contact. Tip hand if we start asking for pics of lots of Volcanoes. Kai checks the tokens and then puts in warded box.
3. Tads suggests psychometry to Shimazu? Do warded box first. F4 - 16 successes
4. Discussion about flight ceiling of chopper vs height of peaks
5. Do we get spirits to drop the token? Be away from the first drop
6. Go over the mission requirements - clarify the details.
7. Check time zone map - avoid midnight shenanigans.
8. Talk about hiding the items - using natural material only, stones probably magically warded.
9. Shimazu tries psychometry and then aura reading on the stones - got nothing.
10. Fly into second weather front, vis zero, sensors only, peaks rising.
11. Tads summons F4 storm spirit, 3 success, takes an ignorable L,
12. Get towards Lae by 16:00, spot the airport (domestic)
13. Kai call ahead, Gwoks, give details, told to lands south to north, we're a vtol, hey it's your fuel.
14. Hunter suggests dropping spirit protection on final approach
15. Landing ok, taxi to rough huts, see evidence of previous flights
16. Open unwarded door, Tads asks all spirits to stay in the vehicle in the wards, Aswon covers the area on optics
17. Landing fee - 300, Kai (sarcastic - nuyen?) Nods, pays 300 in cash, asks for fuel. and directions to the first class lounge. Belly laugh, this way please.

18. Head to the huts - Kai, Shimazu, Hunter, prefab hut, curtain over door nailed in place. Guide goes to arrange fuel on credstick
19. Kai knocks on the door, then goes in - Hunter check drug cloud, pool hall, raised dais with leather recliner, beckoned over.
20. I'm Gwok, gwoks place - are you buying or selling. K-Mostly buying.What are you buying? Mostly maps. Beer, drugs, women? Oh, some beer then, how many crates? Maps? Really? So, half a dozen crates. gets a minion, +2 mates, goes to fetch beer,
21. So - you staying long? No, not really, just working new contacts. We are heading west. Is it a fast ship? Inconspicuous.
22. You haven't got rep down here so nobody will trust you with shit, but you can buy a cargo?
23. We're here half a day, maybe a day - what can we do
24. I don't know, what can you do?
25. There's people in town not paying me respect - you can go sort that out?
26. How do you want this sorting out.
27. Tell them who sent you, and bring me back a hand
28. Are they late in paying something?
29. No - they're just not respecting me
30. Give me the details?
31. No - lings freezers, in town, go sort it out.
32. Pause - are you eyeballing me? No - communicating with the rest of my team.
33. Hunter does a quick search - gets the details for Lings in town.
34. Shimazu - I'll come with you, but I'm not cutting off anyones hand.
35. Fuel bowser dragged by minions, hand pumped. Payment dude talks to the minions in a new language
36. Shimazu clan society roll = rule of might, fight to the top
37. Kai talks to the two guys - they don't understand english. Kai looks for the landing dude - he's gone back into the main hut. Two warehouses, one each side.
38. Kai - wants to scout town, but isn't afraid to burn the place / contact - he has principles, not going to geek someone. Maybe get a hand from the morgue,
39. Aswon - back on board.
40. Kai - ok then.

For anyone wanting to see the puppy:
https://www.facebook.com/kren.cooper/posts/10157213455472581
https://www.facebook.com/kren.cooper/posts/10157215527702581
https://www.facebook.com/kren.cooper/posts/10157217819352581
https://www.facebook.com/kren.cooper/posts/10157221270277581

[Kren Cooper]

Good morning all,
Another fine chilly morning here in Leeds, UK – the dog has been out for his morning walk, beans on toast has been consumed, and episode 161 is SPAGged (spelling, punctuation and grammar) and ready to go – and can be found added into book 6 here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S....pdf?dl=0"
This week we picked up with the side quest to go get a hand for Gwok the local crime boss / smuggler. Despite being experienced roleplayers all (even Tom(Shimazu) now, who has been playing for several years now) they decided to split the party, with just two of them going into town to investigate – because splitting the party never goes poorly…
Off they went, met the quest family, and had the joys of not speaking the local lingo – but also didn’t seem to tug particularly hard on the thread of what was going on, and as a result missed out on some fairly important clues.
After going fishing for local bad guys and the entirely predictable slice and dice fest, they seemed surprised that the police got there so fast – not connecting the fact that one of the three escaping goons *must* have called in the incident for them to be on the scene as quickly as they were.
This is something I’ve had to try and explain to several players who ask me to run solo games, or games for just two players – what I generally think of as “brain bouncing”. In a way, it’s somewhat similar to riddles and puzzles as well (at least in my opinion!), and something I’ve seen plenty of over the last three decades of tabletop and live action games.
See, when a player is given a riddle or puzzle, they will come at it from their own point of view – their approach to solving it is intrinsically tied to their own experiences, world view and knowledge. And inevitably, that will be different to that of the GM or the puzzle writer. They’ll have a go at solving it, but in my experience, if someone doesn’t “get it” in the first few minutes, then they’re not going to “get it” at all – because they lack the framework or different POV.
With multiple players to mull over and discuss an idea, even if the characters don’t have the relevant skills or background to “solve” a puzzle, the interflow of ideas and different points of view and approaches can be enough to kick off that spark of intuition to look at something differently, or ask for more information on something they see is important.
Maybe if Tads had been there, Ali’s natural “I want to solve the plot” would have grasped the loose thread and refused to let go with the grim resolve of a terrier with a rat. Maybe if Marius had been there, he’d have gone “hmm, this feels like the same thing that happened to Nadia after she was attacked”. If Aswon had been there, Jez would have talked to everyone to try and find out why things were like they were and kicked off conversations – and that might have revealed the link between the crime boss and the police, and later events would have made more sense.
Or, they would have had more options to deal with the police when they arrived, and a well placed stunball could have taken them out before the evening was turned upside down with automatic gunfire and fireballs and blown up police cars.

But they didn’t. So now we have an exciting manhunt through the monsoon, and the interest of the occupying Anzac forces on the horizon. So yay for player action and the consequences thereof!
Will be interesting next week to see if they head into Gwoks to try and thrown down the hand and claim they’ve done the job, or if they’ll just go for an assault… despite having played with the team for several years now, and with some of the players for nearly 20 years, they still surprise me from time to time.
Keeps me on my toes I guess!

As usual – here are the notes from the session:
Date: Wednesday 8/9/2060, Location: -6.73315, 146.97326, Time: 17:00
1. Have we got the bikes - yes, buried in the back.
2. Marius - I'm having a kip. Aswon, I can't ride a bike. Kai - come on folks. Tads - I'm not allowed out, I'm a witch.
3. Kai - come on, secret mission. T - no no no. Kai - come on, who can ride, fess up. Marius - I've been flying, not moving, I'm having a stretch, something to eat then a kip. Tads - not going out unless part of a large group.
4. Kai - Shimazzzzzu? Can you ride a bike? Shimazu
5. Kai going for a walk to Lings with Shimazu. Rest staying. Kai asks for bug scan and astral scan
6. Marius - preps vtol drone ready for launch, just in case.
7. No astral oddities or bugs found after checks
8. Kai and Shimazu walk to Lings, no activity, walk past port - average security. Town is run down, but has modern buildings.
9. Deluge, most people hiding, some getting soaked and embracing the monsoon
10. In the shop - dirty, unkempt, stuff past the best buy date. Kai looks for cameras, spots just one over the till area, looks cheap. Spots Kina, watching him, only person in the store.
11. Shimazu changes sign from open to closed.
12. Kina shouts for Mekere with alarm in tagalog, test for Kai/Shimazu to understand. Get that she's calling for help, psychology test for Shimazu - scared, but not unexpected.
13. Mekere slids in through door, frozen leg of meat. Kai coughs, waves hands in a friendly way, says "hello"
14. Kai thinks they are going to rob him - no no, babbles, do you speak english? No. Tries every language he knows, then Ask Shimazu to talk in Japanese. Mekere shouts "Somare!", Kai waits. Girl comes in, babble each way, then "I speak english."
15. ARe you somare? Gasp, how did you know? Lucky guess. Are one of those ling, no - grandfather. Can you translate for us.
16. Do you know gwok - see from faces, yes.
17. Ask her - do they owe money. No - we owe him nothing.
18. Is he a bad man - yes. Why - fail WP test, girl bursts into tears. Dad goes for Kai with meat.
19. shimazu steps in front of Kai. Kai opens his coat to show the gun to the dad.
20. Shimazu quick draw sword and chops for the leg of meat. 4 successes. girl composes herself and talks to her dad, Shimazu chops just above his hand, Girl explains that gwok is a bad man. Kai explains they think gwok is a bad man too, but he sent them here for a hand, they want to fool him.
21. Girl explains, dad confused, doesn't believe, she explains again, he looks confused, she gets angry. Backchats dad, mum slaps the back of her head, family row starts.
22. Kai coughs to interrupt the talking. Tries to explain again, asks the girl if she knows anyone in the hospital / morgue - No.
23. ASk her why gwok is mad at them. Spot her fighting back the tears.
24. Kai says they are going to sort gwok out. She asks how. Kai explains that he's not going to say, so they can't lie. Kai explains again that gwok sent them because of the lack of respect. Girl translates, dad still furious
25. Shimazu asks Kai if the pistol he has is decent or just run of the mill. Kai gets pistol out,
26. Confusion - gwok has sent us a gun. No - gun is from me, just to protect yourself, gwok may not be a problem soon.
27. Leave to go to hospital - quick check with Hunter on location,Kai changes mind, gets Shimazu to hang back and then go wandering through back streets looking for trouble. Shimazu 11 on stealth.
28. Wandering through the market, Kai is jumped on by 4 guys
29. Roll initiative. Shimazu=17, Kai=8, Goons = 8
30. Goons pull out knives, move to engage Kai by surrounding him. Goons - look around, get 10+11 on perception, fail to spot Shimazu. Shimazu slices one in half. Other three run, Kai lets them go. Looks around for rugs / tarps etc - nothing in the area. Asks Shimazu to dismember the rest of the body, takes the hand. Shimazu checks for rings on the hand - yes, cheap decorative jewellery. Take the wallet. Check for tattoos - small skull on R hand, on web between thumb and first finger. Take both hands.
31. Almost back at Lings - spotted by police patrol car, blue lights on as they recognise from description
32. Kai send to rest of team - the rozzers are on us! Marius starts the drone up.
33. Kai - calls Tads for a spirit to manifest and spook the coppers.
34. Tads - common sense, send the spirits to conceal them as they hide naturally. Sends one to accident the car,
35. Run and hide for Kai and Shimazu - good athletics, 8 for Kai, 5 For Shimazu.
36. They hide in the back of a stores yard, extra car turns up, 4 coppers searching on foot. Concealed and with spirits, cops can't find them yet. Drone now on station high above.
37. One of the cops spots Shimazu - shouts, calls to the others. Marius spots them converging. Puts 2 X 6 round ex-ex bursts into the cop car at the back to draw the attention. Hard kill on the engine block, catches fire.
38. Kai tases the cop while he is distracted by the noise - one success, 4 1s - taser hits and drops the copper, then malfunctions. Rolls for random stuff - gets a 1, taser backlash, hits Kai for 8D
39. Kai spends 2GK to get one success, then buy a second, takes a serious. Shimazu stashes the hands and then grabs Kai, firemans lift. Shimazu draws pistol with other hand.
40. Kai says "get the hand, use the cops gun to shoot the cop in the leg". Shimazu - no, keeps running.
41. Tads sends a bigger spirit (F5) to go conceal them, and leave the F2 spirits to do movement.

Lings Freezers
Mekere (H,M,30, Shop owner, no cyber), Kina (H,F,27, Wife, no cyber), Somare (H,F,12, Student), Mwenheh (H, F,9, Student)
Shop is run down, dirty and struggling to make ends meet. Mekere found two men trying to 'take' Somare, and beat them with a frozen leg of meat - they were so surprised that they ran away rather than fight. He has not reported to the police because 'everyone knows the chief of police has ties with the criminals.

[Kren Cooper]

Good morning all!
Update 162 is complete, and can be found in the document here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0
This week the team discovered why Samere was so touchy, and gained a possible insight into the reasons for Gwok’s demand. And, by investigating further, they picked up on the important info that the local police were very definitely in Gwoks pockets, and not to be trusted.
When Kai and Shimazu made it back to the chopper, there was a fair bit of discussion about what to do, and Hunter keyed in on the reveal of the assault on Samere to be his line in the sand – tipping things over into an attack on Gwok and his men, and definitely burning bridges.
As a result, they never delivered the hand, instead setting a spirit to go and drop a bomb on them as they headed off to go find a new place to hide out for 24 hours, until the official mission start.
The plan they hatched was pretty reasonable, and now I need to decide which way it will go (or lay out a decision try, rolls some dice and let fate decide…)
Option 1 – they kill Gwok and a bunch of men. The smuggler stop effectively collapses as the remaining bad guys fall to civil war and power struggles, effectively destroying the base. Some time will pass before someone else at the east end of Papa New Guinea will amass enough power and control to build a new smuggler stop.
Option 2 – they kill a bunch of men, but Gwok was not there. Gwok plays Enrage (it’s super effective) and swears to hunt them down and punish them. Starts spreading rumours and reward posts with details of the three of the team he met and the profile of the bird around on Shadowland – the team will probably hear of this, and then it’s up to them what they do.
Option 3 – they kill Gwok and a bunch of men, and Gwok’s brother, the chief of police, swears bloody vengeance. He starts to go after them from a more corporate POV, using the police networks, reports to the Anzac military and corporate sponsors to try and strike at them.
Option 4 – they kill Gwok and some men, but a powerful lieutenant rises to replace him. He’s now in a quandry of having to publicly swear to hunt down the killers to avenge his previous bosses death, but actually is quite happy it happened as he’s now top dog. On the other hand, if he ever finds the team, he has to try and take them out because he knows they can’t be trusted – after all, they killed his old boss, they could kill him…
I’m perhaps leaning towards Option 3 a little more at the moment, as the players will be back in Australia at some point in the future, and it’s a way to throw a little spanner in the works by having some kind of dossier on file when they get there (or stumbling across old wanted posters perhaps).

Anyway – they flew on towards the first volcano, and unknown to them went straight through the plume of ejected material from the little eruption. I’m using a real world even for inspiration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9) and had a nice graphic of St Elmos Fire to share with them to illustrate this.
Long term, this isn’t going to cause an abrupt failure of the craft – what I’m doing is having incredibly fine ash/dust/residue instead clogging up the engines, slowly reducing their efficiency. Bit by bit their power and effective range will start to decrease – I’m planning on about 5% per trip at the moment. Soon enough they should realise they *need* to stop at a base with proper repair facilities to pull the engines and get them properly cleaned and rebuilt – which won’t take long with the proper facilities, but would be a nightmare without. This in turn will ‘encourage’ them to visit some of the smuggler stops to find a suitable place to work – but it’s up to them which they go with, and how they evaluate the risks/rewards of each.
And of course, wherever they pick, there’s bound to be a side quest or two, to keep them busy… (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

In case they got spotted in town, or decided to go with a frontal assault, I had stats worked out for the fights – but it turns out we didn’t need them. But, here’s what they would have been up against if you’re curious:
Anzac scout drone, responding to calls of automatic fire, inbound from Voco point.
Suzuki Monitor 1 spotter drone (P175, see GM-Nissan Spotter, but stall 35, top 175, accel 25, sensor 2, cost 28k, controlled from base by a 3/4 pilot with VCR1

Response teams - squads of 4 in a Suzuki Dune (P163, variant of Locheed-Chenworth LSV) - 5 units available to roll.
1 driver with 3/3 armour, Glock 18EM (7L, burst, 2RC, 34 clip) with skills/stats of 4
2 trooper with 3/3 armour, Glock carbine (7L, SA,BF,FA, 3RC, 34 clip) with skills/stats of 4
1 corporal with 3/3 armour, Glock carbine (7L, SA,BF,FA, 3RC, 34 clip) with skills/stats of 4, radio, flash grenade, 2 stun grenades, helmet camera+60min recording capacity

Heavy reinforcements if required
Suzuki GX9000 Response vehicle (see Ares Mobmaster P170, but speed 100, accel 2, Sensor 2, driven by a 3/4 pilot with VCR1.
6 trooper with 4/4 armour, Glock carbine (7L, SA,BF,FA, 3RC, 34 clip) with skills/stats of 4
1 heavy trooper with 4/4 armour, MGL 12 (IPE offensive, defensive, smoke and stun rounds, one mag of each) with skills/stats of 4
1 precision trooper 4/4 armour, Ranger arms SM3 (14S, SA, 6 clip, APDS) with 2 reloads, smoke grenades with skills/stats of 4 or 5 in rifles
1 corporal with 3/3 armour, Glock carbine (7L, SA,BF,FA, 3RC, 34 clip) with skills/stats of 4, radio, flash grenade, 2 stun grenades,helmet camera+60min recording capacity

Lings Freezers
Mekere (H,M,30, Shop owner, no cyber), Kina (H,F,27, Shop owner, no cyber), Somare (H,F,12, Student), Mwenheh (H, F,9, Student)
Shop is run down, dirty and struggling to make ends meet. Mekere found two men trying to 'take' Somare, and beat them with a frozen leg of meat - they were so surprised that they ran away rather than fight. He has not reported to the police because 'everyone knows the chief of police has ties with the criminals.

Gwoks Palace
Gwok - drug lord, stats of 5/4, Uzi III strapped to back of chair, 3/1 concealed armour,
10 gang members with pistols - Browning ultra power (9M, SA, 10 rounds) wearing 2/1 armoured clothing S/S=3
10 gang members with shotguns - KS23 (7S, SA, 5 rounds) wearing 2/1 armoured clothing S/S=3
10 gang members with SMGS - SMERSH4 (6M, SA-BF-FA, 24 rounds) wearing 2/1 armour S/S=3
5 bosses, Glock 18s (7L, SA-BF, 17 rounds) wearing 3/2 armour, skills/stats at 4

And last of all, as usual, here are the notes taken during the game that drove the narrative:
Date: Wednesday 8/9/2060, Location: -6.73577, 146.99199, Time: 18:10
Current status
Two police cruisers taken out of action, one on main road with smashed engine block, one on the back road on fire having had the fuel tank go up. One cop (from rear) tasered and down with deadly stun, 3 cops up and actively searching. Cops are 4/3, armed with service revolvers (Taurus Multi-6, 7M SS, 6 cylinder+ID sticks, 12 rounds in two speed loaders, 6 X plasticuffs on belt, radio with encryption 1) Shimazu and Kai covered by a spirit concealment, spirit movement. Kai on serious stun.
1. Q check for Shimazu on 5 - fine, no problems
2. Dusk at 18:30, so 20 minutes to hide
3. Team advise Shimazu and Kai to go to ground and hide, wait for new spirits. Head to back of Lings.
4. Marius picks up edge of another rigger network - detects airborne set approaching from the east - goes low and evasive - piloting ok
5. other drone concentrates on the explosive police cruiser (pair of 1s on sensor check), Marius picks up part of the sig, recognises Suzuki manufacturer
6. shimazu knocks on door, Kina answers, shocked look - Shimazu just pushes inside. Lean too at the back of the main building, bulk storage, puts Kai down, speaks in english, Kina calls for Samere. Shimazu hands out showing empty.
7. Samare - you come back again.
8. Shimazu - my friend is hurt, can we stay here a bit? Does he need a doctor. No, no doc, just need to wait and hide for an hour or two. Do you need Tea? Samere goes to make tea, Kina watches nervously.
9. Two minutes later, two cups of green tea. So - why are you here?
10. K - we went out to deal with Gwok, bad men ambushed us, it went badly for them, the police came, we ran away, we just need to hide from the police. Then we will be gone and out of your life. So no connection to you - don't let anyone know we are here.
11. Shimazu assense Kina as she heads for the shop. No anger / duplicity etc - all calm.
12. Samare - which police came for you? Kai - Shiamzu? Help?
13. Samere - not good - local police bad, well, all police bad, but foreign police not as bad as local ones.
14. Kai - describes coppers. Samere looks worried. Shimazu spots Samere trying to steel herself for something.
15. Shimazu - we'll have to deal with Gwok then
16. Sam - he has lots of men/ guns / friends.
17. Shimazu - maybe less by the end of the night....
18. Marius back to the chopper, stowing away, all quiet at the smuggler base. Marius then check the comms frequencies - detects two networks, police with enc 1, military with higher rating, drone was anzac
19. Marius tries to hack anzac network, can't get in, but is noticed. Soak 3M after filter, soak ok - auto response, drone program roll to detect counter measures.
20. Samere - screws up courage, local police bad, thats why when gwoks men attacked me, I didn't tell the police, they wouldn't have helped.
21. Discussion - Kai angry,
22. Dusk - spirits go, metalwork starts to sing. Audio perception checks on 6s - Shimazu 1, Marius 3+, Tads 1, Kai 0, Aswon 3+, tremor strikes. Aswon checks visual - spots water on the harbour rippling.
23. Samere and Kina get into door, beckon Shimazu and then Kai over.
24. Kai - is that normal? Samere - yes, it happens, just hide under a safe thing, hope house doesn't fall down.
25. 2 mins later, police arrive, chat up the front, samere tells them to hide, takes something back out the front.
26. Stealth checks, Shimazu 11, Kai 2 (reroll to 4) - with spirit concealment of 4, copper rolls a 7.
27. Samere comes back - feeling better yet? you go now? Kai - not yet.
28. Wait a few mins, then radio team, we're heading back.
29. All quiet at the bird - nothing spotted by Hunter/Aswon. Kai gives Samere last 200 nuyen, sorry - we have been trouble, we will try to sort it out. Takes very hesitantly - this is a gift? Yes - you helped us when you didn't have to. Wait here - Sam goes upstairs, tells Kai to wait. Comes back with 2 ponchos - keep you dry and hide you not from here. Kai - say thank you to parents, sorry about worrying your family. Kai, first box of stun, m 1 hour (half way gone)
30. Stealth for journey back Kai = 9, Shimazu = 13. Close call with a cop car, points lamp at them, not match the description because of the ponchos. Arrive back at the tilt-wing at about 19:00
31. 19:30 for 1st box, then 30 mins, 20 mins,15, 15 mins
32. Kai mentions attack on Samere, Hunter change mode - ask Aswon for a demo charge from Aswon, A gets the nod from K, goes to do that. Good demo check
33. Team planning on how to bomb Gwoks sensibly - plan to plant explosives on the roof with a spirit to do the trigger after the team has gone. Demo check - double charge, 1st to blow the roof.
34. Marius has mixed feelings on the plan - in case they need repairs / fuel on the way back
35. Tads - can we blow the fuel dump? Aswon - horribly polluting, very bad. Tads - fair enough.
36. Tads - can we drop neurostun in? Aswon - hey, I have plans for that - and besides, earthquakes or decanting in flight? No! NO!
37. Kai - could we neurostun instead, avoid innocent casualties, hand over the hand
38. Aswon - whoah, danger, nest of vipers, don't go in there.
39. Kai - hand over the hand, sling them a line, mention the police, but then drop the neurostun and sort them out.
40. Talking about Kai going in to schmoose and deliver info. Shimazu bodyguard check - nope, bodyguard check.
41. Tads - we can phone, say we haven't managed the job and we're leaving. Then drop the bomb. Spirit can wait hours.
42. Marius - just wants to take off and leave. Exec decision - starts the engines.
43. Takeoff - Kai's phone ring. "Mr Gwok wants to know why you're leaving" Is he there? "He's busy", there's military activity, we're moving away, we have the hand can send you a picture, "Mr Gwok isn't worried about the military" does he have friends in the military? "that's not your concern" etc etc, Kai sends Hand picture, "If you don't land immediately, Mr Gwok will be very angry." is Mr Gwok in the hut, can I come see him. "Mr Gwok is busy, you can deal with me", give me 2 minutes to speak to the pilot, cuts off call.
44. Kai, we have one spirit with the bomb, how many others? Tads - 5. It was planned to do it some hours after? Kai - that plan has gone out of the window.
45. Tilt wing hovering 30m up 20m across from the huts. Marius - are we going or staying? If we open up, we could be taken a load of return fire. Or do we just leave. Kai - or option 3, drop me off with the hand. Marius transitions to forward flight, heading east.
46. Tads sends spirit out with a 4 hour timer on the detonation. Preps spirits for concealment. Suggest to Kai to have "argument" with pilot for disobeying order.
47. Kai sends a message, we got betrayed to the Anzac, we're dealing with Gwok, not you.
48. Head out over the ocean, dogleg, head for plantation to land near the volcano and wait for a day.
49. Flying out, getting bad turbulence. Hunter spots St Elmos fire.
50. Tads - did we check Kai/Shimazu for bugs? Aswon - nope!
51. Marius - notices engines running a little hot. Eases power down - but notices power dropping a little anyway.
52. make it to landing spot 1:45 after departure,
53. Marius goes to get fuel sample, Hunter, Tads and Aswon feel bitterness in the mouth, hard to breath

So – anyone any opinions on what to do with Gwok’s place?

[Kren Cooper]

Good evening folks. Episode 163 is now published, tacked onto the end of book 6.
This week they dealt with the discovery of hostile gasses in the environment, had a bit of a panic about that, then used a whole bunch of background skills to work out it was bad, but not too bad – and mostly realised that I was once more dicking with their ride…
Based on the situation and the things they discovered, they split the party again, with two of the players going to do the climb and scouting, while the rest stayed with the chopper. As a result, I reduced the climb to a series of three athletics tests to match the lower, middle and upper parts of the journey, and was planning on applying auto-stress/stun boxes like a failed survival test from over-exhaustion if they failed to get successes – but fortunately, they did. This meant I could keep their section of the run moving along reasonably quickly, and then get back to the chopper team, so nobody was left waiting for action for too long. They got through the environmental issues ok – both parts of the team, made their first drop and then got the hell away from the volcano before anything else went bad, heading for the civilian airport to land and refuel.
Next week their range will drop a little more (but not as much as originally planned thanks to the spirit cleaning that took place) to hopefully encourage them to look at visiting some other smuggler bases, looking for parts needed for their engines and the facilities to repair them properly. The alternative is to try and go legit, and leave the paper trail behind – but getting parts for an Aztechnology special forces tilt-wing that matches the description of one stolen from the desert of Syria a while back probably isn’t the best of ideas. That’s not to say that won’t be exactly what they do mind you… we shall have to see.

Here’s the notes from the game:
1. Date: Wednesday 8/9/2060, Location: -5.10911, 151.2686, Time: 22:00
2. Chemistry checks - Hunter botched, Aswon good roll - details provided to Him.
3. Hunter+Tads, geology tests - decade volcano details
4. Aswon - all back inside, do we have air filters? Marius - yes, just normal, not positive air pressure. Hunter perception, picks up traces of all dangerous chemicals
5. Tads -can we check the beer bottles for bugs? Hunter confirms it had been done.
6. Hunter engineering roll - ok, details provided. Marius getting fuel sample and passing to hunter. Also wants to get on sat phone to get proper breakdown of avgas to compare. Ok roll, getting partial and intermittent signals. Patches into the bird and uses the ECCM to punch through. Gets a signal, but it's painfully slow - having to do massive error correction and retransmission.
7. Marius thinks fuel is contaminated - Aswon, nah, not with the lightning etc. Thinks back to outside - can't remember seeing ash or anything. Kai checks optics - astral looks ok.
8. Tads - vadim, paper scicsors stone to go and check astrally. V - I bow to your experience and wisdom, and ladies first. hunter - I like him. Tads, astral peek
9. BGC=0, feeling of longing and despair.
10. Tads heads up and out a bit to further explore. Spots BGC 1 on plantation area to the north.
11. Kai - looks for animals - no sign of anything living, no audio of them either.
12. Hunter puts out a cup of water to act as a poor mans seismograph.
13. Hunter relays engineering data, makes Marius think , he does B/R check, gets his info.
14. Analysis of the fuel - it's ok, not the best quality, but it should be ok.
15. Marius - no, it's the ash - we need to strip the engines.
16. Hunter - can we cover them? Marius - it's not a problem when powered down, its when in flight that it will be sucking in.
17. Aswon - we might be able to ask Tads to help, maybe an air spirit. Might need a great form. Could need this for every volcano.
18. Kai - we could go east, to the smuggler base, that we haven't blown up. Discussion of fuel ranges and ability, and it's possible - Aswon - as long as the engines are running ok. Can we make a cover for the engines - cloth cover? Marius, as long as it doesn't get sucked into the engine.
19. Marius - are we flying or walking up. Start looking at routes and distances.
20. Tads - thinks about spirits to keep the chopper safe. Good roll - mountain spirit to start cleaning the engines, air spirit to purify inputs
21. Aswon route planning - about 6 hours each way including the climb. Kai - roadS? No, 12-15km is the closest you can get by road.
22. Tads summons F5 mountain spirt to clean engines. Aswon, can we get closer before we hike, to cut down the distance/time - too long in the jungle, asking for trouble.
23. Check sensors - uniform temp from monsoon, no sign of hotspots.
24. Kai - fly up, hover, levitate someone out to plant the token, back up, fly off. Especially the area to the south, hide the token in a tree. Kai asks about temperature impact on the craft
25. Marius - shouldn't be an issue, unless its belching out shit and hitting us.
26. Kai - wants boots on the ground perhaps, wants people with skills - Hunter and Aswon. Aswon - guerillas might be hiding up there - military can't fly there. Aswon and Hunter plan to do a hike, get kit and respirators together.
27. Marius - just occurred to me, the higher we fly the more shit gets sucked into the engines.
28. Aswon - but all the crap comes out of the top. Gas from all over sure, but if you fly up the cone, you should be mostly ok.
29. Hunter - as long as there;s not a pyroclastic flow
30. Aswon - sure, but in that case, we're all fucked anyway...
31. Kai - could we send a drone. Marius - just the same as the chopper, in fact probably more so.
32. Aswon - wait for dawn, night in a monsoon is a bad idea.
33. Marius - wait for dawn, near equator, probably sunrise is about 8am.
34. Tads - I can do astral recon in the morning hopefully, and check the map.
35. Marius checks the engines, team beds down. 10 minute pause for smokes / drinks etc.
36. Thursday 9/9/2060, 08:00,
37. Tads, astral scout - good scout, spots lava, green area
38. Aswon - we should take token along with climbing gear etc. No objections.
39. A+H approach the base of the volcano, athletic checks, both fine, abandoned village, jungle overgrowing. Try the comms, intermittent. Aswon - simple click code, 1,2,3 10+ clicks found landing space. Send co-ords for landing by no of clicks.
40. More climb checks, both have mods from claws/gecko, both pass fine.
41. Last check on the final approach, on 8s, lava flows and ash clouds, Hunter ok, Aswon RR, both one success.
42. Volcano is 4 X 4 km. Have to drop at <1000m from centre of crater, well into the upslope area at a height of 1650m or more Climb of 1650m - so +165mins for the climb, on top of the 1km+ of very difficult terrain.
43. Up at 8am, astral scout, ok, A+H head up the mountain, good check, good check, only just - lava flows,

44. Ball lightning, rolls after Aswon, plants spear, hits spear, blows up, Aswon grabs spear, minor burns.
45. Head up to be well inside the radius, find a spot that is untouched to plant token, old flow.
46. Plotting route. Get there by 15:30-16:00, think about the chemistry and their gear / bio systems
47. H+A agree to spend the rest of the day on the volcano, send co-ords to rest of team.
48. Chopper team focus on cleaning what they can, using gear+spirits
49. Otherwise teach vadim about magic gubbins
50. About tea time, ball lightning again, after Aswon, plant the spear, same again
51. Get to midnight ok, plant the token in a handhold nook, send the click.
52. Chopper up, passes all three handling checks, gets over to hover, levitate the ground team up into the chopper. Perfect control, easy pickup. Tads drains ok
53. Marius heads SW, it's about 630km back to Lae Airport. Tads - can we get a flight plan? Others, probably, but out of dust cloud for comms/signal, and we can deal with that later.
54. Marius - if we mayday, they *have* to let us land, can get us in there and deal with it then. Can change the colour to not match what we had at Gwoks. Tads can also mask it
55. Head for the civilian airport at Lae. Once over international waters, contact airport, declare mayday. Get the cleaner answering, very bad english, very confused. Can't find the runway lights. Not sure what is going on. Says he will leave the guys a note to explain what is going on.
56. Get to Nadzab airport about 02:30 on 10/9, safe landing.
57. Quick discussion - Gwoks guys saw Hunter, Shimazu and Kai - they all stay hidden. Others sort stuff out. Marius wants a spirit - but then thinks about the locals hating witchcraft. Kai adjusts face/melanin.

I also prepped some “science” drops which were sent out in greater or lesser parts to the players who made their science and engineering rolls, to see what they shared with their teammates.:
Hunter - chemistry checks for eruption dangers:
Lava and Pyroclastic flows are the most significant threat to metahumans, however, significant amounts of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen halides can also be emitted from volcanoes
Carbon dioxide:When this colorless, odorless gas is emitted from volcanoes, it typically becomes diluted to low concentrations very quickly and is not life threatening. However, because cold carbon dioxide gas is heavier than air it can flow into in low-lying areas where it can reach much higher concentrations in certain, very stable atmospheric conditions. This can pose serious risks to people and animals. Breathing air with more than 3% CO2 can quickly lead to headaches, dizziness, increased heart rate and difficulty breathing. At mixing ratios exceeding about 15%, carbon dioxide quickly causes unconsciousness and death. In volcanic or other areas where CO2emissions occur, it is important to avoid small depressions and low areas that might be CO2 traps. The boundary between healthy air and lethal gas can be extremely sharp; even a single step upslope may be adequate to escape death.
Sulfur dioxide: a colorless gas with a pungent odor that irritates skin and the tissues and mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, and throat. SO2 emissions can cause acid rain and air pollution downwind of a volcano, high concentrations of sulfur dioxide produce volcanic smog (VOG) causing persistent health problems for downwind populations. During very large eruptions, SO2 can be injected to altitudes of greater than 10km into the stratosphere. Here, SO2is converted to sulfate aerosols which reflect sunlight and therefore have a cooling effect on the Earth's climate.
Hydrogen sulfide: is a colorless, flammable gas with a strong, offensive odor. It is sometimes referred to as sewer gas. Interestingly, the human nose is more sensitive to H2S than any gas monitoring instrument we have today: air mixtures with as little as 0.000001% H2S are associated with a rotten egg smell. Unfortunately, however, our sense of smell is not a reliable alarm - at mixing ratios above about 0.01%, H2S becomes odorless and very toxic, causing irritation of the upper respiratory tract and, during long exposure, pulmonary edema. Exposure to 500 ppm can cause a human to fall unconscious in 5 minutes and die in an hour or less.
Hydrogen halides: HF, HCl, HBr are toxic acids, when magma ascends close to the surface, volcanoes can emit the halogens fluorine, chlorine and bromine in the form of hydrogen halides (HF, HCl and HBr). These species have high solubility; therefore they rapidly dissolve in water droplets within volcanic plumes or the atmosphere where they can potentially cause acid rain. In an ash-producing eruption, ash particles are also often coated with hydrogen halides. Once deposited, these coated ash particles can poison drinking water supplies, agricultural crops, and grazing land.

Engineering
High temperature gasses ejected from the volcano are likely to carry significant charge, which contributes to their readyness to bond with water or elements in the natural environment. However, when meeting the fast moving parts of modern equipment, ionic bonds are accelerated due to high static charges found in modern engines and avionics. Volcanic ash is hard and abrasive, and can quickly cause significant wear to propellers and turbocompressor blades, and scratch cockpit windows, impairing visibility. The ash contaminates fuel and water systems, can jam gears, and make engines flameout. Its particles have low melting point, so they melt in the engines' combustion chamber then the ceramic mass sticks to turbine blades, fuel nozzles, and combustors—which can lead to total engine failure. Ash can also contaminate the cabin and damage avionics.
Pilots can't see ash clouds at night. Also, ash particles are too small to return an echo to on-board weather radars on commercial airliners. Even when flying in daylight, pilots may interpret a visible ash cloud as a normal cloud of water vapour and not a danger—especially if the ash has travelled far from the eruption site

Marius - piloting check / Rotor B/R test
Volcanic ash is composed of fragments of rock, crystalline material, and volcanic glass. The glass component has the lowest melting temperature—lower than temperatures inside the combustor of a gas turbine engine. Ash that finds its way into the combustor may melt. Combustor and turbine components are cooled, as the metals they are made of have lower melting temperatures than the gas temperature inside the engine core. Molten ash that touches these surfaces is likely to freeze, and accrete on the metal surface.
The most sensitive surface is the high-pressure turbine nozzle guide vanes (NGVs), situated immediately downstream of the combustor. The gas flow is choked through the NGVs, and so the flow area through the NGVs is a controlling area for the engine. If this area is reduced due to an accretion of ash, a smaller mass flow rate of gas passes through the engine core. Reduced mass flow leads to the turbine doing less work. The turbine drives the compressor, which accordingly also does less work compressing the air. If the compressor can no longer contain the high pressure gas in the engine core, the gas flow can reverse and flow out of the front of the engine. This is known as an engine surge or a compressor surge, and is often accompanied by a ball of flame that bursts out the front of the engine. This surge is likely to extinguish the flame in the engine combustor, known as a 'flame-out'. Once the high pressure in the core dissipates, the engine should be free to restart. Restarting an engine at altitude can be difficult, due to the lower temperatures and pressures of the ambient gas, but is not normally a problem. The reduced flow area of the NGVs can make it harder to restart the engine.
Volcanic ash carries significant electrostatic charge. Fine ash that enters electronic components within the engine or airframe can cause electrical failure—which poses an immediate hazard to the aircraft.

Ash-induced problems requiring increased maintenance
Volcanic ash, as a hard substance, damages gas turbine compressors. It erodes by impacting compressor blades and vanes and removing material—and abrades by three body interactions between the rotating blade, ash particle, and compressor annulus. Changing the shapes of the blades and vanes and increasing gaps between blades and annuli both help reduce engine fuel efficiency and operability.
Molten ash that sticks to cooled surfaces can block cooling holes. This stops cooling air flow and heats surrounding metal, leading to accelerated thermal fatigue. This process affects combustor and turbine components.
Ash can accumulate and partially block fuel spray nozzles, impairing air and fuel flow fields and mixture stoichiometries in the combustor. Such adverse conditions reduce engine performance and can create local hot spots that increase the combuster's thermal fatigue rate
Following exposure to volcanic ash or debris, a full engine strip and clean is recommended to avoid further wear and damage, and to certify the engine as fit for purpose. Failure to remove particulate matter can cause increased wear and damage to components at an exponential rate vs time since exposure.

Finally, this was the rough detail for the checks to get to the top of the volcano:
1. -5.05116, 151.32711: Volcano #1- Uluwan, Papa New Guinea: 2100m, steep slope, no landing points
Challenge - natural elements, bad weather, skill checks: With the start of the monsoon season hitting with a vengence, the players will encouter awful weather as they approach the volcano. St Elmos Fire affects the screens and instruments, giving steadily mounting modifiers to navigation if they continue to try and fly. They will encounter ball lightning in the area, making for randomly moving threats that must be avoided. In the middle of the encounter, they will also find Storm spirits / Thunderbirds around the peak during the height of the monsoon, revelling in the charged atmosphere. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9) Tilt wing base handling=5, minus VCR 2 rating = 3s. Weather will contribute +2 to +4, Terrain will vary from Open to Tight giving +0 to +3 giving tests in the 5-10 range. Test one - base approach, bad/open=5s, test two - midpoint, bad/restricted=
6s, test three at the peak, terrible/tight=10s

So – onwards to Volcano #2 and a new challenge this week.

[Kren Cooper]

Good evening all, this weeks writeup is now complete and added onto the bottom of book 6, found at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0
Having landed at the airport at the end of last week, they had to decide what to do – and deal with the local cleaner. Despite him being an “eye-witness”, having seen several of them when he came to the door of the chopper, they didn’t do anything to him, hopefully having realised that he was a bit simple, and not the most reliable of people for describing what they looked like.
There was also a bit of a moral discussion on whether they should/would/could pay for the fuel, and how they would do it, which was a little surprising – I suspect that having now left the airport, this will be “forgotten” and just slide out of memory for folks, and its unlikely to actually have any repercussions on them (short of me docking a karma off them for being thieves and affecting the entire local community – and then I’d still have to tell them that as meta-knowledge for it to actually have any impact…so probably not.)
Only three bits of notes really relevant for this weeks plot:
1) Iwatoo the Cleaner, Stats of 3/2, English 1, cleans the building at night and acts as security / watcher. Writes everything down (in Tagalog - these are never read, and just binned by the manager who tells him regardless ‘good job’)
2) The Airport building is one big shed, internal flights only, some benches, a pair of vending machines, simple toilets, car rental desk, primitive wifi, broken systems and a VFR flight tower with radio. Fuel tankage to the west, one aircraft store (empty, simple toolkit only for interior fitting maintenance mostly)
3) Location #2 at co-ords -6.03682, 143.88772: Mount Giluwe, Papa New Guinea, 4000m, rippled peaks and valleys. Challenge - neutral non-human NPC to persuade / diplome with. Still during bad weather most likely, but not to the same effect as #1, the players will be able to close on the location and plant the token, but will encounter a curious free spirit, which will move or throw the marker away. It needs to be bargained with, and persuaded to leave the marker alone - but will want to know all about the reason why they and the markers are here. Mostly likely they will resort to a karma bribe (it needs only a small amount) to achieve their aim - but story time is also an option. The spirit may decide to stay with them if they are "too" generous or "interesting", wanting to travel with them and making a bit of a pain in the arse of itself. Spirit: Nature spirit, Spirit of the sky (Storm), Force 9, Spirit energy 9, 6 Spirit powers, 1) Animal Form (New Guinean quoll), 2) Dispelling, 3) Personal Domain, 4) Hidden Life, 5) Aura Masking, 6) Possession.
The airport is modelled very loosely on a Romanian provincial airport I had the pleasure of flying from a few years back, which redefined the word ‘basic’ – though being fair, it did the job it was supposed to. Certainly they at least did have what looked like an xray machine there, though it could have just been a big box with a kids toy that made burbling sounds inside…
To go with the simple airport, I put in a simple NPC – someone to make the players interact with and decide if he was a credible use / threat (and he wasn’t either, being a very hard working, but mentally somewhat deficient local)
Last of all was the spirit on the mountain. I rolled this up using the random spirit designer from MITS to see what came out, and the luck of the dice turned it into an absolute beast. With force 9, it also started with spirit energy 9, and then giving it personal domain boosted it up to ridiculous levels while on the volcano, and still very potent off of it. With aura masking, it wasn’t like the team would find out that much from it either, unless it chose to tell the, Tads had a go, so I at least dropped an indication of the power level, just to put the team in the right ballpark of where their odds would be if they kicked off.
I also had a chat with the players as the session ended, to let them know OOC what was going on – that this was an RP “challenge” / “opportunity” – and that karma was being awarded for the success of their efforts here. I wasn’t going to make anyone tell a story, or come up with stuff, but there were rewards if they did – but as long as someone on the team covered the all of the team members somehow, they would be ok.
Tads has done a story for Hunter, and is working on a Nenet folk tale for herself, and I think Aswon will come up with something interesting. We’ll have to see what Marius, Shimazu and Kai come up with, and how much of a tale they weave next week…

As usual, here are the notes from the session that led to the writeup:
• Friday 10/9/2060, Location: -6.56463, 146.72597, Time: 02:30
• Kai looking for local, no signs of life, nothing on the sensors, no sign of life. Marius - do you need tools. Marius - hopefully I have everything we need.
• Kai+Shimazu go for a search, find not a lot, fuel depot with decent maglocks.
• Meet Iwatoo on the way back from fuel. You with broken plane? Ahh, good. I left note. Ask him for fuel, no fuel, no key - fuel is not dirty.
• Marius and Aswon examining engines - chopper B/R, two successes, 2 days to repair with a facility, 2 weeks without.
• Aswon - do we need to start pumping contacts. Marius - do what I can to fix stuff. Kai - check the facilities, work outwards from there. Who’s good at breaking into shit? Shimazu - I have lockpicks, but not good for maglocks.
• Aswon - can we get to Philippines ok - don't want to stay in the warzone,
• Kai - lets' just get fuel and bugger off to next stop.
• Tads - we've got another volcano here haven't we? Aswon - yes, possible damage, but we need to do it.
• Hunter computer search on maglocks, about R5, maybe AT1-2. Only source of value on the airport, very low tech
• Kai - can we check schedule for next flight? Tads - will they have a matrix site?
• Hunter checks matrix site - prebuilt, badly put together, no numbers
• Iwatoo comes, asks if they want cleaning. Kai says no. Asks where they are leaving the notes, maintenance people. Asks if they can wait in the terminal. No - is clean. Why cleaning so late. Don't know. Asks him to get stuff from vending machine, Kai will wait here - hesitant, but ok. Send Shimazu to sneak in and check the place out.
• Sneaks in with an 11, cleaner got a 2. Iwatoo gets supplies.
• Very basic facilities, it's a shed, radio only, find some documents from 7 months ago about late flights, calendar on the wall, number of rental place in town, nothing else. Shimazu leaves.
• Check fuel status - used about 1400 litres of 1800 tank. Aswon - we can't see ash cloud at night. Marius, best to just lock up and sleep then. Aswon - except tads can't sleep, or will have to wake up early to recast the spell.
• Aswon - let's just find a repair facility in the Philippines then. Kai skill check, failed but not botched - just check the yellow pages.
• Tads - double checked no cameras. Kai+Shimazu confirmed, cleaner doesn't seem that interested. Hunter - do we still have spirits? Can they do concealment? Tads - might be witchcraft - Hunter, but it's still in the middle of a monsoon. Kai - can we send a spirit to look for cameras? T- maybe. Aswon - this place seems very primitive, very surprised they have cameras.
• Tads - want to go and check on Gwoks as well. Will take Vadim, do a stealthy approach. Tads briefs Vadim on stealth protocols.
• Watcher spirits, APCs, hole in roof, armed soldiers nearby. Tads 16 on stealth, Vadim 5, Watcher spirit get s a 16... spots and chases Vadim.
• Tads heads for RV point, one check to see flock of spirits heading out and a mage. 10 mins, Vadim comes back, looking feral. Tads - keep going, stay out for a while, Team waiting. ASwon watching, Hunter sleeping. Mages back ok, Aswon watches for 20 minutes just to be sure, Tads asks for wakeup call at dawn. Rain lessons a little, but is in for the day.
• Aswon - if they had a mage, they probably suspected magic. So we want to just get away from my POV.
• Tads - do we want to just have no magic at all, now mages are involved. Aswon - I agree.
• Marius - shall we taxi to the fuel depot an hour before dawn and try to get the fuel, just leave some money. No cred reader to do the transfer.
• Taxi over to fuel area before dawn. Trying to break the locks on the fuel depot. Tads offers illusion cover, Marius says no thanks.
• Rating 5 maglock, terrible conditions, 1 success on taking the case off, sets off the anti-tamper. Electronics roll to determine what is going on. Live comms line out of the lock, sqwaking an alarm. Will take about 15 mins to fuel to bird.
• Hunter - police procedures. Local police, 30 minutes response time, Anzac occupation forces about 5 mins.
• Start fuelling, prep for launch. Sensor watch, get tanks topped off, put fuel pipes away,
• Tads - can we leave a burner phone, so we can try to pay later? Aswon - don't want to leave any electronic trail. Marius, we can always contact them later.
• Take-off, spot a single police cruiser closing up the highway.
• Aswon - if they thought it was serious, they wouldn't send only one car. Marius / Hunter - they might not have any more...

• 319km to Mt Giluwe, do they want to wait for dawn and fresh spirits, Marius says yes
• General consensus to go slow and get there after dawn, give tads time to get that sorted.
• Kai - can we get repairs at Arkan Port. Marius - probably not, need an airport / proper facility. Might be a way to get into japan, to declare another mayday, overplay the damage to the engines, leave a small team to go to do the tokens under stealth. Aswon - we have 3 or 4 stops to do though, and without a tourist visa that would be tricky. But may be worth a go. Maybe call the employer for help?
• Marius - for normal mechanics, it would be a week long job to do a 2 engine pull and refurb. Possible way to get in. Discussion about how far to go, how long the work will take etc.
• Team look at route, number of hops, number of volcanoes to land at etc
• Get to Mt Gilawue, cold, damp, humid, no sign of activity.
• Arrive, land safely. All look for some time out of the chopper, fan out - except Kai, who stays behind. Kai thinking about ringing in to airport, Aswon sceptical like selling shares, Tads - no, we will do it as we owe them. Tads reminds them to talismonger. Kai decides to go with. Kai slips over and gets winded, takes an L. Kai goes back to chopper in a strop.
• Spot the quoll, coming towards them, about the size of a small tiger.
• Aswon recognises family but not type, Tads thinks it's a quoll, should be much smaller. Tads assenses - strong spirit, at least 2X power. leave it alone!
• Transforms to small child and sits cross legged, "hello, you're new".
• Tads - actually, setting up for hide and seek. Hunter walking up to get inside the radius. Hey where he's going? Inside the radius. You want to go onto my volcano. Oh, this is all yours? Yes!
• I need a story from each of you.
• One story per person, or one story for each person?
• Oh, that sounds interesting - one about you or involving you, but not necessarily told by each of you.
• Tads offers to tell tale about her and Hunter. Hunter picks up the pace.

[Kren Cooper]

Good morning all. This weeks write up has been published and added to book 6, found at https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0
Mixed feelings this week. Tads had prepared a story for both herself and Hunter – but then Hunter decided to tell a story himself, rehashing events that had happened back in the Quarry. Kai and Shimazu told me what they were going to tell a story about, said they would send over notes, but then didn’t, and Marius just gave me a quick precis in game for why he hates dragons. Only Aswon came through with a story, actually going far beyond what I was after – which sort of makes up a little for the others I guess.
It appears you can lead a roleplayer to water, but you have to hold some of their heads under the surface, or something like that…
Still, they told their stories, and got the spirit on-side, planted the token and can cross off Volcano #2 from the list – so they’re well on the way. They have worked out that the chopper really does need a fix though, and will start to run into problems when trying to make that happen, when they discover that parts for the Aztechnology bird are hard to get, and will either leave a paper trail leading directly to them, or they’ll have to hit the shadows and make arrangements there.
Next week they’ll be working out how to meet the Huk, and delving into the jungles and backwoods of the Philippines to meet a contact there, looking to sell on their guns and then heading for Volcano #3.
#1 was an environmental challenge, with athletics being tested and causing some damage to their ride.
#2 was the RP challenge, with them needing stories for the spirit to be happy.
#3 will take them onto the turf of a mining company busy extracting all kinds of materials from the volcano, who will take a very dim view of their attempts to “steal” the resources. So, it’s likely this one will end up in some gunplay, magical combat and possibly a chase sequence – let’s see how happy Marius is to redline his engines in the state they’re in.

As usual, here are the notes from the session – the story from Aswon was pretty much as I received it from the player, who did a fab job of capturing his tone, and telling events from a different point of view.
1. Friday 10/9/2060, Location: -6.03672, 143.88829, Time: 09:15
2. Spirit - who first?
3. Tads - chanting background skill, tribal legends:
4. Tads chants a story of the beginnings, of how the earth and all living things were created by the god Num. This included his son, the god of evil, Nga, but Num will protect the people when asked for help, and the appropriate gestures and sacrifices were made. The scarifices and gestures have changed through the years but are still made when necessary. Ya-nebya, Mother Earth, also helps and protects the specifically feminine energies around women, and is often called uplon during childbirth.
5. These are supported by the shaman, of which there are three ranks. Sambana communicate with the dead and are responsible for rites and rituals related to death in what is known as the lower world. Tads herself is a Yanyani shaman, responsible for communing with the land and the elements to ensure a balance is kept, as much as possible, which is in the middle world. The third type are the Vidutana, who do both Sambana and Yanyani as well as dealing with everyday life in the upper world.
6. Most shaman now also follow either Num or are called by an animal helper of Num to work in their specialist area, such as Elk being a protector and defender of the herds and the thus, the people.
7. Kai - I have questions first, that wasn't on the deal, will you pay the price, is my story the price for being here? Yes. Back as a small child, in my village, how he got into bows and arrows. Details to come...
8. Vadims tale - into the clearing with Tads, the giant wolverine arriving, through into the metaplanes, a giant forest full of people trying to hurt the forest. Calling spirits and using his new spells to try and defeat them using only low power illusion spells - being chased, feeling helpless, then a rage building in him and him summoning a powerful spirit to smite them with vengeful wroth - though he had a bad headache afterwards.
9. Marius - how annoyed I get about being pushed around by dragons - family+cyberware in SK, from Lofwyr - "oversized german bastard", moving on to Aiden, then one Chinese and one Japanese dragon. Life's not fair. German for "scaly motherfucker"
10. Shimazu - many moons ago, Shimazu+Sato, icy ponds, Sato fell in, couldn't swim, Shimazu had to save him, kinda his fault as he dared him
11. Hunter - retells the story of Nadia's assault in the caves. But the PG version
12. This is a short tale, when one of the team was caught and assaulted in some unlit passageways by two members of another larger group with a reputation of being ( hunter will remember what info about the bogbuster crew we got…Gus doesn’t sadly) unscrupulous bully predators on what they perceive to be week female victims.
13. Fortunately the assault was stopped by brave and valiant 3rd party, when the accused were confronted they were dismissed and full of a self-riotous confidant attitude of what are you going to do about it. When it was clear that we as a team wanted this assault resolving and a price to pay for the two assailants actions, a contest was agreed upon with the assailant team leader demanding it to the death.
14. Now they put forward their champion in this unarmed martial contest was an orc like myself of much bigger proportions than me, as I was chosen but I also volunteered, as to me this was important as there is nothing I hate more than this type of predator, to be the one extract our teams due.
15. Needless to say I won the contest and due payment was collected shall we say and I won’t go into the details of how but it was unexpected how it happened and it was very quick and very decisive.
16. For me it’s simple no one messes with any of the members of this team we are friends, comrades, companions and have become family and when of ours is hurt we will defend our own to the death.
17. Now I know this is short but stories I don’t tell well, make them I can and quite possibly do, some of the others will I no doubt tell/ have told longer ones
18. Aswon - going to deal with the professor at Sarangani
1. I am from a land far to the west of here, where my people revere the land and those who live upon it. In my culture I am a warrior, and so I have travelled to many places and fought in many battles. I could perhaps tell you a tale of mighty deeds I have performed? Sights I have seen? Many would expect it.
2. But I shall instead tell you a simple tale that demonstrates the most important lesson I have learned which holds true no matter the endeavour.
3. Recently, we needed to stop at an island far to the north of here. Fuel, rest, the details do not matter. Fate required that we stop, and so we stopped.
4. The island peak was not so mighty as your home, and was covered in lush jungle.
5. Living there on the edge of the jungle was a man. The island is his home, and he serves as a protector of sorts. Many have made their home there in times past, and he makes sure their treasures and the land are not disturbed without… good cause.
6. We arrived, and exchanged gifts as is usual when one expects to greet a host – I apologise that we did not know we would be meeting you – and he told us of visitors who had arrived before us, with whom a bargain had been struck that they would be allowed to carefully study a site of interest to them for seven nights, in exchange for a contribution towards the man’s ability to keep the island safe. In this case, money, for the visitors had no practical gifts to give.
7. A fair trade.
8. They had outstayed their welcome and had sought no leave to remain.
9. He asked us, in exchange for hospitality, much as you have asked us for a tale, to take the trek into the jungle and restore the honour of the bargain struck.
10. We understand the importance of a bargain, and so we agreed.
11. A fair trade.
12. Marius would be our eyes from above, using his connection with his machines to guide us and assist in restoring the balance of the bargain struck.
13. All but Marius headed into the jungle: Tadibya, Shimazu, Hunter, Kai and myself.
14. I… am Aswon.
15. The jungle was bright… to those with eyes to see it. All manner of creatures: monkeys, snakes, strange birds. Vines and trees and flowers and fruits of all kinds. Occasionally the sight of an animal or plant so pure it radiated into the spirit realm.
16. Wondrous. I have fought fierce battles in such places, rarely have I been able to take the time to wonder.
17. The trail was not too hard, and within a few hours we neared their encampment. Tadibya consulted with the local spirits to ensure that we could reach them without causing alarm. Although our plan was that Kai would speak with their leader and attempt reason, as it was he with whom the bargain had been struck, the man had already shown himself to be untrustworthy, as I’m sure you agree.
18. Therefore Shimazu, who is Kai’s guardian and shadow, would go with him as ever but Hunter and I would be ready to intervene should the leader instruct his underlings to fight rather than see reason. His group were, after all, little out of childhood. None of us wanted violence.
19. Still, we wanted to be sure that even from there we could step up further – Kai’s plan often involve layers – and so Marius would bring one of his heavily armed flying machines into range to join us should it be needed. Tadibya sought the agreement of the spirits to help keep us safe, and wrapped us in protective magics.
20. The leader… did not see reason.
21. He said he was entitled to be there.
22. He said the man who served as guardian of the island had no power over him, and was undeserving of respect.
23. He said he had powerful friends and we should just go away.
24. But a bargain had been struck. By us, by him. Bargains must be kept.
25. He asked why he should not set his students upon Kai and Shimazu. Students! In his care!
26. And so Hunter and I appeared from the trees, stepping out of the concealment of the spirits.
27. Still he railed against us, though he went no further in exhorting his students to what, for all he knew, was their doom.
28. Still he refused.
29. And so Marius revealed himself, the noise of the engines drowning out the miserable wretches protestations and entitlement, as he realised he faced not just a negotiator and his body guard, not just magic, not just men at arms and not just a master of machines, but all together and all at once.
30. His resolve crumbled. He agreed to meet the bargain he had struck, and we left, to return the tribute to its’ rightful owner.
31. Back down the trail we journeyed, intending to be back by nightfall and our spirits high: violence had been avoided, honour and balance restored, and of course, our own needs for fuel and rest now guaranteed by way of our own bargain.
32. But in our confidence, I – I, Aswon – had forgotten that at all times one must respect the land and a clumsy step angered a snake I had not seen.
33. Now I must tell you that I have nothing against snakes. Or scorpions or spiders. Yet strangely they seem to abhor me, and my body, I know from bitter experience, abhors their venom.
34. And this snake was no different. Rather than retreat from our group, all much larger than it, it struck.
35. A deadly jungle viper.
36. Do you know about jungle vipers? No? Well, they say a jungle viper’s venom will dissolve your flesh as it poisons your heart. That you will watch yourself rot before the end, and die in agony.
37. Its’ fangs flashed towards my calf, with lightning speed.
38. Well do I know the dangers of terrain like this. I had not even seen it. I, Aswon, thousands of miles from home, was to die from carelessness.
39. [pause for dramatic effect, hopefully the listener asks what happened]
40. What happened? Well, I did not die. For I was with my friends and both Shimazu and Hunter sprung into action. Before my foot had reached flat to the floor, the sharp retort of gunfire and the swish of a quickly drawn blade saw to the snake’s end.
41. It was not the snake’s fault. It was my fault.
42. It is my people’s way that you do not take game you intend not to eat, and so I resolve to learn the lesson this jungle had to teach, packed the snakes body away and took it with us to the beach.
43. And that night, many of us feasted on snake for the first time, for that was better than taking yet game just for the sake of comforting familiarity.
44. Ah, and what is the lesson?
45. Well that is twofold:
46. First: snake tastes good. Two thumbs up from Aswon.
47. Second: It is not the battles or the travel that matter. It is that no matter the challenge, it is better to not be alone. It is not the journey or the fight, spirit.
48. It is the friends one makes along the way.
19. Spirit listening raptly, watching intently
20. You have the best stories! Those were awesome, I shall come with you!
21. Aswon and Marius - nonplussed. Kai - for how long, hours? days? Oh - no, maybe weeks or months. Kai - don't you have to look after the mountain? Stamps feet - nah, it's ok.
22. Marius - dragon check to see if spirit entrapment is a thing.
23. Kai - team, vote, blackball. Spirit - sounds like you don't want me. K - it's not that, but we can discuss after the token dropped off. Defer to Hunter - token, yeet or ride, ride, massive ride up the hill for Hunter, shit eating grin on the return.
24. Aswon - talk while spirit is gone. Tads - handy if we go back to Tashkent to deal with the horror. Aswon, it might not help that much. Did it have masking? Tads - think so, more than 2X power. Aswon - it doesn't sound that hostile, we might be able to take it out a little but it will come back and seek revenge. We may just have to let it come with us? Kai - how about we ask it for it's story? Aswon - could be a good protection. Kai - could be a deal, payment for taking it.
25. Tads - do you think I could have a go if I asked nicely?
26. Kai - were you successful? Hunter - nods. Kai - sits down with the spirit. Do you want to come with us? Smugglers, sneaking, violence, sometimes danger/getting hurt. Q - I shall sit and watch, interesting stories. Tell us your story. Q - oh no no no. K - but you know all about us. Q - I know something about you. Discuss "all about" and refusal with Aswon.
27. Story - campers, bad weather, 2 walkers, overnight tales. Rip through tent, Yeet, safety for stories.
28. Ok - lets go! bounds towards chopper, what's it called. "the bird". Kai tells the names of the team, gets its name - quoll. Let it in the ward, it shrinks to chinchilla size. Looks around "what's that!" at everything.
29. Marius starts up- nope nope nope! Bouncing! Open the door. I will stay here. Welcome to come back here, with stories, and I will guard you. Tads - more people will come, Q - will they have stories. Kai - oh yes. Aswon - they may fight. Choose if you want to get involved.
30. Call to Arkan port, about 1300km away, Marius heading that way, drops to lower altitude.
31. Overflying some anzac units, no firm sightings though, little radio traffic. Kai calls Arkan, ok to be there in 3 hours, sure - do you need fuel? Ok, we'll make arrangements... Kai asks if they have aircraft repair facility. No - a little on drones.
32. Arrive at Arkan at 12:45, Aswon stays hidden.
33. Trike arrives, soldiers looking bored. Hello - come with us to the house. Into the parlour. Offer refreshments. Wanted more notice, fuel will be here tomorrow.
34. Wait or go - team decide to wait and not use reserves. Kai calls Sarangani - they have loads of fuel, did the delivery go ok - yes fine, been and now back. Do you want anything - no, I'm good for guns. Though I can put you in touch with the rebels - they always want guns.
35. Tads - we have the beer from Lae - can we offload that here?
36. Kai - gift it for the hassle on the fuel. Talk to the colonel about weapons. Kai offers beer to the colonel. Bevvy training! sets up range on the beach.
37. Up to 6 hours of weapons training time for team.
38. BBQ in the evening, guest rooms. Talk with the colonel, they want basic weapons - pistols, smg, few ARs, regular ammo. Hunter reminds Kai about respirators. Talk about noddy suits - 800Ny, or refrigerated suits at 2k each. Struggle for size on Hunter, rest of team should be ok (they don't know about Aswon)
39. Kai gets 3 X chiller suits, 6 noddy suits. Lash the guns to the ramp.
40. Tads going back to the chopper for the night. Basic bedrooms, everyone sleeps in their own rooms.
41. Saturday morning - 11, fuit and cereal, tads examines. Get told fuel is arriving at lunchtime. Marius rests and does preflight at about 11:00. Tads calls Aslik - not available, leaves a message about mindlink of the pack. Aswon reminds Tads of the time difference....
42. Kai - do you want to scout out the bomb site back at Lae. Tads - not particularly, what do you want to know. Dangerous if they have onsite magic... Kai - happy to leave it. Kai calls Sarangani to arrange eta of tea-time. Message to rebels - we have a delivery with rough manifest and eta, costs - adding 20% profit.
43. Trawler appears at midday, into the lagoon at high tide, lash to the corvette, fuel bowser, transfer to the chopper, 10500 for the fuel, 13:30 when all done. Takeoff and head for Sarangani - quiet journey. 1400km.
44. Rotorcraft roll from Marius - 6 successes, temps are hot but ok, fuel economy is down 10%
45. 17:00 - coming in to land at Sarangani.
46. Plan - gun run, to a civilian airport for repairs.

Location #2 at co-ords -6.03682, 143.88772: Mount Giluwe, Papa New Guinea, 4000m, rippled peaks and valleys. Challenge - neutral non-human NPC to persuade / diplome with. Still during bad weather most likely, but not to the same effect as #1, the players will be able to close on the location and plant the token, but will encounter a curious free spirit, which will move or throw the marker away. It needs to be bargained with, and persuaded to leave the marker alone - but will want to know all about the reason why they and the markers are here. Mostly likely they will resort to a karma bribe (it needs only a small amount) to achieve their aim - but story time is also an option. The spirit may decide to stay with them if they are "too" generous or "interesting", wanting to travel with them and making a bit of a pain in the arse of itself. Spirit: Nature spirit, Spirit of the sky (Storm), Force 9, Spirit energy 9, 6 Spirit powers, 1) Animal Form (New Guinean quoll), 2) Dispelling, 3) Personal Domain, 4) Hidden Life, 5) Aura Masking, 6) Possession.

[Kren Cooper]

Good evening all,
Episode 166 has been written up and added onto the end of book 6, published in the usual place: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0

Starting off on the beach, the team made arrangements to do a weapons drop off with the Huk – decided to keep this one relatively simple and low key. Gave them a simple cell structure, and very primitive facilities, with them having to improvise a little to make things work. I thought Lee / Marius would react more about having to land the chopper on the paddy field on plastic pontoons – it was actually Jez / Aswon that reacted the most. Just goes to show…
After the drop, it was a short and easy run to the 3rd volcano, where they came across the next “challenge” – a full blown Japanese mining operation extracting sulphur and other chemicals from the volcano to use in industry, with a decent sensor/drone security system in place.
As part of my “research” on this, I watched a couple of videos that proved to be quite shocking:
1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y37EzVzasG4 (2.5 minutes)
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tvHkk1qZ0 (50 minutes)
Nothing blood thirsty or graphical, but really brings home the difference in quality of life, expectations, difference in culture and risk, and reminded me of what massive privilege I have in my life. Certainly, if I ever strike a match again, I think I’m probably going to flash to some poor guy carrying his own bodyweight up the side of a volcano through sulphur fumes, then down the outside, to be paid a single euro for the 4 hours of work he’s just done…
But, having watched that, it fleshed out some details for me of what kind of situation we might be looking at – so now we have scattered mining processing centres, all designed to be lifted by Skycrane style helicopters in the event of an eruption – like the spice miners of Dune, with a massive penal colony carrying the raw materials to the, all tagged with explosive collars, while a high tech perimeter keeps them in place, and a small fleet of air drones monitors the whole situation.
Plans at the moment include having a Huk raiding party come to disrupt mine operations, raising the security alert level and making things harder for the players, or a sabotage strike by a rival mining firm, doing the same thing as other shadowrunners arrive to shoot the place up. A third possibility is for them to discover a bunch of prisoners trying to break out, hiding just inside the fence line when they try to do their infiltration – and have to bargain with them not to try and break out, as that would probably raise the alarm and blow the teams cover.
So, some prep work to do for Tuesday, with a rough outline of the geography of the volcano, where the work gangs are, the drones, riggers and so on – I have the reinforcements / military response from the local town and Marine garrison already worked out, along with the timings – so will feed some intel to the players, and then sit back and listen to see what kind of plan they come up with, to get in there and drop the token somewhere.

Here are the notes from this weeks session:
Saturday 11/9/2060, Location: 5.44443, 125.49474, Time: 17:00

1. Aswon gets rifle - "this whole business with the huk worries me."
2. K-Do we need to get the bird repaired - M, yes, discussion - where to stop
3. General team planning for route from 2nd volcano
4. K - feels like HK is better, contact of Aswon, family. Aswon - I'll take time to go see spook, off mission.
5. Aswon calls Spook - engaged. Leaves a message - need to get put in touch with someone.
6. K goes to greet Kui Hai, ask if any problems with late payments, no, all good.
7. K - deliver for Huk. Kui - can I see the goods? K - sure, take over to bird, lower ramp. Open, show,
8. Kui calls E, arranges meet, gets codes, tells team. Check location, Marius goes to bed
9. Spook calls Aswon back. Wassup? Doing a trip round ring of fire - don't ask why. Engine troubles. Need to do an engine strip. Choked on volcanic ash. Ahh - you need parts and facilities. Maybe, we can do the work. Spook outlines rough location of Chun's. Ok - few steps on the way, maybe a few days... Ok - you still doing the job, not available for work? Hmm, probably not, need downtime, maybe me only.
10. Look into when volcanoes 3 and 4 last blew, 3=25 years, 4=40 years. Both appear quiet and well behaved at the moment, 3 giving off gas. Look for aircraft disruptions - get news about the effects from #1 closing down flights into/out off Japan.
11. Team do some exercise, or talismonger at edge of jungle. Shimazu botches - ruins a perfect skull, Tads nothing, Aswon a few parrot/parrakeet feathers for an air spell of some kind.
12. FFordward to 11:15, wake Marius, prep the bird, fly north
13. Head north, in stealth, with spirit concealment, no trouble at all.
14. Give code phrase, water or air. Air - how much does your aircraft weigh? Gives estimate...
15. Drop into a hover and let me know. Aswon on the optics, looking out. Skiffs out, drops platforms under the landing carriage.
16. Marius to Kai - do not piss these people off. Shimazu, shall I stay on the chopper. Marius lands - very gently.
17. Thumbs up from the guy on the ground, then kill the engines.
18. Open non-warded side. Kai out, gives passphrase, 3 in skiff with AK47, Emerald is waiting. Into the skiff - Kai, Hunter, Aswon go in skiff, rest stay in chopper.
19. Greetings, I'm Kai, we have a delivery for you. I don't know what you're talking about. Mutual friend. Tractor parts - you may have another use. Passes list, trees move as watchers train guns.
20. Sourced from a group of south African friends. You're not cops? You're not working for the Japanese? No - independent traders. Swear on the life of the emperor of japan you're not here to fuck with us. Team swears.
21. Send the boys to collect - Kai - we wait here? Can do. Hunter and Aswon go to help offload. Offload guns ok, bring to house, looks in box - no touching, no talking.
22. Kai - smuggling check, good roll, she is skirting legal edge, no commitment. Emerald - ok, we can talk, how much? TBH, it was on our route, price of fuel. Just doing it to help out people. So - you support our cause?
23. Pay 12k for guns, agree new code phrase, team name="new fish". Still got 10 mins before you start to sink.
24. STarting to sink - just, get in, start up, head out.
25. 12:15 - heading about 150km, sensor check, 10+9, Get to about 35km away, pick up bubble. Aswon looks astrally - sees lots of metahumans.
26. Local news is full of manipulated media. Hunter checks Shadowland, 1 success - gets just the name "Masaka Minerals Corporation security forces" had a run in with someone elses team.
27. See the site, info on the drones, spot the sensors, look for the CPA and move around to approach it.
28. Tads checks background count, about 2, getting worse.
29. Marius - can't tell what the drones are, not without getting too close. Move around the outside, for the CPA, stealth in, got a 5(14), stealth in ok, land unobserved, about 2km from co-ords, cammo nets over the main fuselage and wings.
30. Tads - does more magical training for Vadim, reinforces the dog-leg, never run straight back home.
31. Heading for first ridge to observe. Survival checks - Tads and Aswon guide the team through the darkness ok. Get to ridge line. Perception checks+recon for Hunter. Description of defences.
32. Aswon - might be for keeping slave labour in...
33. Check if active IR matches drone activity - no, seems to be random. Spot the collars on peoples right arm, get an idea on drones+sensors.
34. Hunter check on gas spec+chemistry, strong sulphur
35. Ka - why is the flux so high Marius? M - some will be the size of the perimeter, harder to spoof / evade. K - would you expect onsite riggers. M - yes, definitely. K - can you steal them, M - no, don't have the equipment, it's on the shopping list.
36. Chemistry and geology checks - get reason for them mining the sulphur.
37. Hunter confirms they are mitsuhama company. Marius - their tech is likely to be pretty good then. Aswon - zero zone.
38. Doing recon, watching for shift changes+other recon activity.

This was my session plan / prep / crib sheet:

• Kui Hai will act as a liaison to the Huk once he's seen the guns, giving them the contact for "Emerald", near the Tagum River, Tagum City along with a comm code and passphrase.
• The meet is set up for midnight, and it's about 245km from Sarangani, so about 30 mins flight time.
• Emerald has a short range radio, and will guide the team in towards the plantation, and get them to hover, with the landing gear down - then get her men to move large sheets of plastic out underneath them to spread the weight and stop them getting stuck in the bog.
• She will want to meet the team, talk to them and check them out before discussing the purchase, to establish their credibility. She will purchase the guns, being willing to offer up to 15K in Nuyen, or less if the team want to make any contacts or use Huk facilities (she can only share other Emerald resources, and would have to go up the chain to access Diamond/Ruby/Sapphire cells, which would require her to vouch for them, and in turn need more rep)
• From the meeting point it's about 145km to Mount Piapayungan and token #3. Mount Ragang, also called Mount Piapayungan and Blue Mountain by the local people, is a stratovolcano on Mindanao island in the Philippines. It is the seventh highest mountain in the Philippines and the highest point in Lanao del Sur.
• Ragang has an elevation of 2,815 metres (9,236 ft) and a base diameter of 32 km (20 mi).
• Masaka Minerals Corporation Mine - a subsidiary of Mitsuhama, have set up a mining operation on the volcano
• There is a large native workforce, digging up sulphur and other chemicals by hand from various vents, carrying them up/down the volcano towards mobile processing centres - all facilities that can be relocated by air. To support this there are a number of Masaka air units on patrol in the area, along with several wings of surveillance drones.
• There are approx 1000 local miners, working shifts or gangs, heading to vent points to break up and collect lumps of sulphur to take to the local processing facility. Many of them are convicts or political prisoners, and they are all tagged with screamers.
• The whole site is ringed with a sensor post network, strung out in a chain 15km long - sensors r4 detect traffic in or out of the area and sound the alarm, notifying the drone operators.
• The drones are methane cell powered, with long loiter time, and carry an assault rifle each with a 100 round mag. The drones have encryption 4, sensors 3 and a speed of about 40mpt, and a distinctive high pitch whine from the motors.
• Each chain or gang of people deliver cargo to a small processing facility located about an hours walk away from the workface, and deliver their cargo, which is weighed in and allocated to their work record, then quickly smashed up and goes through the first processing stage, before being shipped off in a purer form by 4X4 transports to the main road and the processing factory.
• Each of the first stage processors are designed to be airlifted in and out of site depending on volcano activity, by the cargo choppers - Skycrane like choppers that can each carry a mining module around the site.
• At the processing sites there is a security detail, between 6-10 security officers with radios (encryption 3), with riflemen, light armour, and 1-2 heavy weapons, to drive off Huk guerillas or rival corporations.
• Site drone riggers (2 on duty) have VCR3, Control pool 6, Deck rating 6, 12 drone network, Filters 2, PEM 4, Flux 8, Signal Amp, Encryption 4, ECCM 2
• Magical assistance from the JEF is located at Marawi City, where there is a G1 mage with 4 X F6 air elementals and 2 X F6 fire elementals available as backup. If he gets injured or falls, it would relay to Davao City (150km), where there is a G3+G2 mage, each with the same elemental loadout. The G3 has shielding.
• Marawi City has JEF marines able to scramble in 5 minutes if hi-tech weapons are detected / observed, and will send in 1-3 choppers of marines with a combat squad in each, armed with air to air missiles, 20mm cannon and full combat

[Kren Cooper]

G’day all! Session 167 now complete, and added to book #6: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0

Picking up from last week with the team doing recon for a few hours, I’d prepared the following information for them to digest and to kickstart some planning:
Dawn - recon results:
1. No magical activity has been observed - no astral travellers, spirits, magical effects or presences.
2. There is at least 500m of terrain to cover to reach the edge of the drop zone, if they want to risk a maximum range drop.
3. They have observed the location of 2 X drone refuelling areas, though the facilties are out of sight. The drones look to be fairly slow moving, but have good endurance - estimate a top speed of about 40mpt, but armed with an assault rifle / LMG sized weapon.
4. The rigger network is estimated at R3-4 encryption, and you have observed drones under direct control of a security rigger or pilot. Marius estimates they are flown competently, and probably as well as he would fly...
5. At the processing sites there is a security detail, between 6-10 security officers with riflemen, light armour, and 1-2 heavy weapons in each team.
I also had two encounters lined up to potentially take place while they were there, depending on what they did:
Huk raiding party:
30 raiders, 4/3 stats, 7M burst rifles, no armour, no tech, hand signal co-ordination, led by Gadabhrt, part of the Malachite cell. They are trying to trash a facility and steal/destroy tech in a poorly planned raid.
Huk breakout party:
4 escapees, all 2/3 stats, political dissidents, very minor cyberware, half starved, Alain M 28, Iaicchik F 19, Paarbrahm M 30, Waalbaqi M 21
All wearing dets on their right arms, they have snuck away overnight, and have a plan for one of them to try and set off their bomb, using some stolen metal as a shield and to sacrifice their arm, then the others rush through and take them with it, while the sensors are disrupted from the blast. It won't work, as the sensors are more sophisticated than that.
If the players intervene, the collars need an electronics B/R test to get the case off, vs base 5s with AT2 - so need 3 successes. Once inside, it's electronics 4 test to disable with a single success.
The team came up with a plan, and were getting ready to initiate – putting the token on the roof of one of the facilities. I asked Kai to roll for a random encounter, and he didn’t disappoint – the man has a bizarre talent for rolling 1s! So, a vent exploded and they got to see the relocation of the processing centre, which then called their plan into question and caused a rethink. They also saw some more of the armed response available, so got a little more information.
After that they came up with a workable plan, and implemented it, using magic to solve the physical infiltration problem, and sending the token over remotely. In a very bizarre set of rolls, my Sensor 4 drones rolled a 14 (enough to spot the token once) and then a whole bunch of 13s (enough to get a ghost and convince the site riggers something was up, triggering a more active search.
I also rolled for the token – something the players have not realised yet is that each of the tokens “fluctuates” between yin and yang, modifying their ability to be affected by magic. When they pull out a token, I roll to see what they’ve got – either they act normally (1-2), are pro magic (3-4) or anti-magic (5-6). The players got ‘lucky’ and got a neutral one, so their levitate spell worked ok – but I’m sure this is going to catch them out in the future! Once they cotton on, I’m sure they’re going to do a more careful analysis of the tokens and try to sort them out so they can save the “right” ones for the volcanoes that they need to use magic at.
But, they managed to get the token planted and were thinking about leaving, when they saw the escape party making a break for freedom. Deciding they didn’t want to accept the side quest, they did a legger, and heard the explosions of the collars as they were making their way back, shrugged their shoulders and kept going. Kept their life simpler for sure – but missed out on a chance to make allies with the Huk and learn some more valuable information. C’est la vie.
Onwards they went to Volcano #4, and some superb perception checks identified the Salamanders lurking in the rocks, so the forthcoming combat will not be a surprise to anyone. If Aswon stays true to form, I may need to work out what Roasted Salamander should taste like (I mean, I’m guessing it’s like chicken, right?) and keep a track of how many Hunter shoots and ‘ruins’ for talismongering purposes.

As usual, here are the notes from the session:
1. Sunday 12/9/2060, Location: 5.44443, 125.49474, Time: 06:30
2. Kai summary - high tech defences, drone air cover, keeping people in, keeping people in, no magic, probably due to background count, might be toxic shit,
3. Looking at rigger network - trying to establish if there are multiple riggers. work out threat to team +bird - Marius, we need to *not* be seen.
4. Check out the dig sites - 11 success between team on assensing.
5. Kai - tads, can you control animals? T-no.
6. Marius - think about sensor posts: if they have IR, animals will set it off, do they tune to avoid, or get blasé about false alarms.
7. Hunter - are either of the dragons in bed with Mitsuhama? Aswon, the Japanese one of the two, but who knows.
8. Aswon - thinks the dig sites are nasty but not toxic, based on feeling.
9. Marius - I like the levitate plan. Does T have good LOS. Observe, plan on putting on the roof of a processing facility.
10. Hunter - examine the top, fairly quiet, suggests up there.
11. Kai - can we fly over the top? Check flight ceiling - can't get above bubble, won't work. Kai - other options, sabotage distraction, attach to someone going in. Aswon - trouble with that is raising the alarm, huge fleet of drones, troops - too much activity for us to deal with. Aswon - I favour a slow insertion now, maybe watch for a day, do the plant and then get out.
12. Kai - test with a pebble. If no reaction from the drones, go ahead.
13. Tads working out levitate vs magic force.
14. Marius - survivalists, isn't there tree goop to stick the token somewhere? Tads - I suggested that a few minutes ago...
15. Kai - if it kicks off with the pebble, we'll need magic defences, an illusion to cover us ASAP - that ok Tads.
16. Fozzy rolls a 1, minor quake, venting at the north dig, choppers come in to relocate the base, 3 choppers, soldiers on 3rd chopper. Drones drifting that way.
17. Get a pebble and do the trial to the venting, coming in from much further north. One of the drones gets a partial lock on the pebble and starts to circle. Aswon suggests getting the pebble to circle like a flying insect and die. Drops the pebble as per suggestion, drone got a more solid lock, triggers an alert.
18. Troop chopper heading towards alert area.
19. Hunter - my thoughts, not a building, as they obviously move them and they could shift them off the mountain, and go outside 1000m
20. find some tree resin that would form a gluey mess when mixed with some water.
21. Team working out how to get LOS to something solid and non-moveable - perception checks are good.
22. Troop chopper goes to search area too
23. Marius - go over a sensor post, not between, overlap, it's worse.
24. Aswon - how high are the drones, can we go above as they will have look down sensors? Marius?
25. Either that or just at tree level and lose in the clutter.
26. Tads sends F5 spirit to conceal, go high,
27. Marius - sensors are a bubble, they may see that far up - may not, but I think you have to go too high.
28. Aswon - go over the sensor post, then low level then, to make the token easier to spot.
29. Tads - worth waiting for a day to study drone patterns? Aswon, think that they will have too much random patterns built in, and we need to long a study
30. Vadim summons a F5 with 2 services and gets a moderate stun
31. Checks - 1 over the sensor post, 3 random drone overflights - all on 14s now with concealment. One drone gets a 14, searches, can't relocate, have to take a slower route up though as drones on alert.
32. Aswon - wait 5 minutes to see what happens? Kai - yes, let's wait a bit
33. Spot the prisoners heading for the fence to the north.
34. Aswon races off ahead to start stripping netting, Tads guides the team back. Halfway back to the chopper, explosion, then a pause, then a triple explosion. Demo checks - possibly collars.
35. Arrive back at the chopper, half the netting is off already, Marius starts pre-flight, have used 380km of fuel to get here.
36. Tads - do you want concealment? Marius - yes please. Tads, uses the F5 last service
37. Take-off, spot drones near the fence line looking for the runners, troop chopper in the air. Marius flies more evasively. Shimazu spots the gunners on the troop chopper executing miners, splots of background count appearing
38. Shimazu spots a mage and a few spirits heading SE from NW location in fast astral.
39. Now about 09:30 - fly north for about 2 hours, dog leg around islands to stay over the water, heading for volcano #4, should arrive about 11:30
40. Windswept, barren, spot landing site at the top, quiet and desolate. Superb sensor and magical perception checks. Spot the nest of salamanders.
41. Aswon - avoid that shit - probably poisonous!
42. Marius, go to the other side, use Tads to shape earth a landing pad, the sensible people plant the token, while the nutters go talismongering...
43. Move around to the west side, away from the salamanders, come to a hover. Tads needs to do 3 X casts at F4 to create a landing zone.
44. Hunter - question - why are we landing anyway?
45. Tads casts 3 times, makes 3 X piers, Marius wary but trusts her. Marius handling check to land ok - all fine. Tads training Vadim on cleansing.
46. Hunter aiming to throw the token into the big pond / lake at the top in the crater. Aswon, Tads and Shimazu go as well..
47. Roll for perception - Hunter and Shimazu definitely spot the other salamanders, nobody is surprised. Combat starts next week
48. Have flown 1070km distance,

Information about the Volcano and Mining company:
• Ragang has an elevation of 2,815 metres (9,236 ft) and a base diameter of 32 km (20 mi).
• Masaka Minerals Corporation Mine - a subsidiary of Mitsuhama, have set up a mining operation on the volcano
• There is a large native workforce, digging up sulphur and other chemicals by hand from various vents, carrying them up/down the volcano towards mobile processing centres - all facilities that can be relocated by air. To support this there are a number of Masaka air units on patrol in the area, along with several wings of surveillance drones.
• There are approx 1000 local miners, working shifts or gangs, heading to vent points to break up and collect lumps of sulphur to take to the local processing facility. Many of them are convicts or political prisoners, and they are all tagged with screamers.
• The whole site is ringed with a sensor post network, strung out in a chain 15km long - sensors r4 detect traffic in or out of the area and sound the alarm, notifying the drone operators.
• The drones are methane cell powered, with long loiter time, and carry an assault rifle each with a 100 round mag. The drones have encryption 4, sensors 3 and a speed of about 40mpt, and a distinctive high pitch whine from the motors.
• Each chain or gang of people deliver cargo to a small processing facility located about an hours walk away from the workface, and deliver their cargo, which is weighed in and allocated to their work record, then quickly smashed up and goes through the first processing stage, before being shipped off in a purer form by 4X4 transports to the main road and the processing factory.
• Each of the first stage processors are designed to be airlifted in and out of site depending on volcano activity, by the cargo choppers - Skycrane like choppers that can each carry a mining module around the site.
• At the processing sites there is a security detail, between 6-10 security officers with radios (encryption 3), with riflemen, light armour, and 1-2 heavy weapons, to drive off Huk guerillas or rival corporations.
• Site drone riggers (2 on duty) have VCR3, Control pool 6, Deck rating 6, 12 drone network, Filters 2, PEM 4, Flux 8, Signal Amp, Encryption 4, ECCM 2
• Magical assistance from the JEF is located at Marawi City, where there is a G1 mage with 4 X F6 air elementals and 2 X F6 fire elementals available as backup. If he gets injured or falls, it would relay to Davao City (150km), where there is a G3+G2 mage, each with the same elemental loadout. The G3 has shielding.
• Marawi City has JEF marines able to scramble in 5 minutes if hi-tech weapons are detected / observed, and will send in 1-3 choppers of marines with a combat squad in each, armed with air to air missiles, 20mm cannon and full combat loads.

[Kren Cooper]

Evening everyone! Hope you’re all having a good week, and are ready for another dose of Smuggler goodness. This weeks writeup is done nice and early courtesy of having a day off Thursday around a tooth extraction, and the power of having some Tramadol left over to banish the ache afterwards – and it being a short writeup.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0
So – what happened this week? Well, at Volcano #4, the challenge was a fight – so I’d statted up some paracritters designed to give the team a good challenge. There were a couple of design considerations I had to think about, to make the fight meaningful and threatening.
1) Shimazu with his sword is pretty lethal in melee, with attunement and a point of reach he hits a lot, and hard.
2) Aswon is no slouch with his spear, having more reach and centering, though he has a lower damage code so finds it harder to stage up so much.
3) Hunter has 6 points of effective recoil comp, so can do two bursts on no modifiers, or a 6 round string on fully auto, and that is quite punchy.
4) Tads is a grade 5 mage now, making her stun balls pretty big – and she too has a good number of dice to throw at a test.
So – what to design? Well, I started with the concept of a Salamander, as you know – volcano, hot rocks, sulphur vents… seemed appropriate. A quick look through the Critters book and the Paranormal Animals of Europe / North America, and it was clear the stuff in there was a good basis, but not what I needed.
So – out came the inventing stick, and then Lava Salamanders appeared. I worked on having two sizes, for some juveniles and a few adults – though the players never worked out they were looking at that rather than male/females or some other mix. I gave them the following stats:
Adolescents: B5, Q4, S5, C-, I3, W3, R3, Init 11, CP5, Attacks 8M bite +4M heat blast
Adults: B6, Q5, S6, C-, I4, W4, R4, Init 15, CP6, Attacks 9M bite, +5M heat blast
I was planning on having plenty of them, so rather that doing initiative as say 2 or 3d6 each round, I worked out an average value, and just baked it into the stats – making the start of the combat round much quicker and meaning they all rushed around in a mob, potentially making them a little more scary.
Both were given Immunity to Normal weapons and hardened armour, giving effectively 8 or 10 points of armour – enough that even the soaks from a 3 round burst with a handful of successes or a good swipe with the sword were still possible to soak.
I also give them two nasty little tweaks to come as a surprise for the team. In my head-cannon, these beasties tunnel and chew through rock like a rockworm, eating hot lava and semi-molten rocks, and their specialised stomachs slosh this around, absorbing some of the minerals before the regurgitate the hot slag in a stream. A little bit like Terry Pratchett’s dragons, they’re a volatile chemical process, that’s dangerous to be around. So, the first side of this is that as they’re lunging at people with their bite, they inevitably exhale a burst of molten crap in a shotgun like blast – meaning the target needs to soak a 4M heat based attack – the kicker being with no armour. Once the team discovered this, they needed to guard their combat pool for soaking / dodging a lot more, cutting down their offensive attacks a lot. The second was that on death, the autonomic systems that kept the molten mush moving in their bellies would stop, and stuff would reach a critical mass – and then explode. Any round that a critter died in, I effectively dropped a grenade marker on the corpse, to go off at initiative phase 0. This of course gave them an incentive to move away from corpses, making things difficult if they were still in melee range of another critter who might then get a free swipe at them – and also meant that they weren’t going to get much from talismongering.
With that done, the main “danger” was Tads and her enormous stun-ball. Now as a grade 5, with Shielding, she could make the team pretty much immune to her own spells, even if they were in LOS, and should she drop a nuke on them, it was likely to be over as soon as she got to her initiative, and that wouldn’t create the air of danger I was after. So, I took the effect from Nimue’s Salamanders, and warped it slightly – each of the “big” ones now got to make an essence test against the force of any spells coming in to range, with each success lowering the force of the spell by 1. This should vastly reduce the threat of any AoE spells to the pack, without making them utterly useless.
Great! With 9 smalls and 3 bigs, that was the encounter monsters sorted – now to look at the environment. I really wanted to make them think about what they were doing, so I put them in very deep ash over rough rocks, on a 50-60 degree slope – making movement horrible. That would put them on the defensive somewhat, with the high tech weapons, while the critters charged – hopefully giving a Zulu Dawn feel as they got charged down and had to keep them at range or risk being detonated by the exploding bodies. And of course, the more explosions there were, the more chance of a quick ash avalanche, requiring some fancy athletics tests to avoid.
With the stage set, we could make a start!
As it turns out, the combat took pretty much the entire session – not surprising giving the crunch of 3rd ed, the number of combatants (18 in total), the environment and the tracking of explosive corpses and slope status to keep in mind. But, everyone was involved, and by keeping the creature initiative simple, things kept moving at a reasonable pace. We went past our normal stopping time, but I think even the wife (who normally turns into a pumpkin at 9pm) didn’t comment, realising that we didn’t want to stop the fight ¾ through…
The players won of course, actually working very well together, making small unit tactics rolls, buddying up to stop themselves being outflanked and providing mutual support and generally having solid tactics to deal with them. They used a number of re-rolls up avoiding damage, and the main casualty was the amount of stun poor Tads took – which made her levitation of Hunter and herself to avoid the avalanche a lot less certain and added some tension.
Still – they got the token dropped in, and finished target #4, and are now ready to head off on their journey to Hong Kong, where there’s going to be some downtime on the chopper to get it fixed, and some side quests to keep them busy.

Here are the notes from the session – mostly initiative trackers and then actions in order.
1) Sunday 12/9/2060, Location: 12.76885, 124.05354, Time: 11:54
2) Party starts split: Kai, Marius, Vadim on the chopper, landed on the extruded rocks - query, are the engines still running - impact on fuel status; Hunter, Shimazu and Tads on the slope, having spotted salamanders
3) Shimazu 23
4) Aswon 21
5) Hunter 18
6) Marius 16
7) Tads 15
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) Bigs 15
9) Smalls 11


10) Shimazu first, move forward and left, Athletics check ok, moves up 8m,
11) Aswon, moves a little, prepares to set for charge, athletics check ok, moves up 4m, activate spear,
12) Hunter, 7 round burst far right, not moving - hits, soaks to an M
13) Tads, put up shielding on group, move to support Hunter
14) Salamanders swarm down the slope, 1 gets close enough to attack Shimazu, attacks, loses, takes an M, heat damage to Shimazu. RR - soaked.
15) Marius moves to R side door gun, Kai moves to rear and climbs out
16) Back to top
17) Shimazu, attacks same, 10D - kills it, soaks the heat damage.
18) Aswon moves up slope ok, attacks small, centre to counter modifiers, centers all mods, beats by 1, 10M, soaks to L, soak Heat damage, Detects quite rumble from #1
19) Hunter - 6 round burst to the one flanking Aswon. does an M after soaking from 13D
20) Tads - paranormal creatures, 1 success, no magic evident, armoured, adjusts position to get more stable
21) Marius breaks out the LMG and gets it locked and loaded
22) Lizard 2 attacks Shimazu, it almost dies
23) Back to top
24) Shimazu - jumps up and back, activates traceless walk to land 1-2m downslope, 1 rr 4
25) Aswon - SUT test, 1 success. "Shoot them!" Centre for mods to move - all mods countered
26) #1 explodes, Aswon and Shimazu soak 8S reduced to 2S from range, both soaked. 1 rr still 1,

27) Shimazu 19
28) Aswon 18
29) Hunter 16
30) Marius 15
31) Bigs 15
32) Kai 12
33) Smalls 11
34) Tads 11
35) Round 2
36) Shimazu - quick draw pistol +shoot, shoot badly injured one, pistol kills,
37) Aswon - moves back from one just killed, centres ok, moves ok
38) Hunter - aims at #3, 6 round burst, 3 hits, 16D, takes an S on top of the M
39) Marius - door gun, LMG, 6round burst, drops it.
40) Big ones moves down towards group
41) Kai - shoots at the closest Big one, archery, doesn't do damage, +2 taser effects, no splode
42) Tads - aims stunball at first big one - Hunter free action to help steady her if needed, RR on cast F5 stunball at S. Big ones do magic drain, get just enough successes to nullify the spell. Takes M stun from casting.
43) Astral perception checks to spot what happens - energy absorbed off. Paracritters roll - Aswon, like Nimue Sallies
44) Back to top
45) Shimazu Shoots #5, shoots, soaked, holsters gun.
46) Aswon shoots at badly injured #3, 1 success, wounds, shoots again, drops - using APDS
47) Hunter - grenade into middle of pack, launch weapons, no deviation,
48) Marius - 4 round burst to #8, serious wound - does an S, dead
49) Kai - shoots at #5 left flank, slow moving serious wound, shoot in the eye, kills it.
50) Smalls - charge down.
51) Explosions ripple, Aswon and Hunter soak,

52) Round #3
53) Aswon 19
54) Shimazu 17
55) Bigs 15
56) Tads 15
57) Marius 14
58) Kai 13
59) Hunter 12
60) Smalls 11

61) Shimazu quick strike - moves to #6 and attacks, wins by 11, 12D, 2 successes on soak, one box off dead, soak heat
62) Aswon shoots #7, kills, change target to #9, misses
63) Tads - sees avalanche coming, levitate on Hunter and hangs on. Levitates, gets 2, up and out of ash. Now at M+2 stun
64) Marius - retract door gun, close back ramp.
65) Kai - Athletics check to roll through closing door - 2 success.
66) Hunter - shoot at C as rising in the air - stiches fire down the spine, dead,
67) small attacks shimazu, dies, soak heat
68) Back to top,
69) Aswon - shooting at #9, kills it, backs away from corpse and avalanche, moving fine
70) Shimazu move to left, stay at same height
71) Tads - go up. Hunter and Tads perception check, both spot the pack on the other crater lip
72) Marius - hears rumble of avalanche, heads to cockpit, starts to increase power, leaves side door open for ingress
73) Kai - avalanche closing, rolls on side, clamber over gear to open side door
74) Hunter reloads to APDS, asks tads to go to crater edge
75) Another avalanche on left flank, towards aswon
76) Out of combat time, Aswon dodging 2nd avalanche
77) Drop token in, all get in chopper, start to power up and take off, flying away - calling it there.

Environment:
Steep slope, 60-70 degrees of loose ash and pumice over fragile rock. Difficult terrain for all metahumans, giving +1 to +3 terrain modifiers as they move around. Salamanders get to ignore the mods, becoming more of a threat.
A large number of adolescents (15+) boil from cracks and steam vents at their approach, along with a few adults, looking to hunt them down.
Tads is at the back, so a stun ball may well also cover/hit Hunter and Aswon.
https://geographic.org/photos/volcanoes/vol...photos_314.html

Monsters: Lava Salamanders
Adolescents: B5, Q4, S5, C-, I3, W3, R3, Init 11, CP5, Attacks 8M bite +4M heat damage(no armour).
Adults: B6, Q5, S6, C-, I4, W4, R4, Init 15, CP6, Attacks 9M bite, +5M heat
Powers/notes
Effective armour of 8/10 vs mundane weapons, 4/5 vs magical weapons.
Both types explode 1 round after death, causing Body+3 S damage, -1 per 1/2m.
Magical suppression field - make an essence test vs F of spell, reducing the effective F of the spell per success.Does not affect the casters drain.

[Kren Cooper]

Good morning everyone, hope you’re all well. Episode 169 is now published in book 6 and can be found at: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8cqop2u4ijnjgi/S...ok%206.pdf?dl=0
A longer than average one this week – not to make up for last weeks short episode, but just the way it goes. Tads went back to see the Quoll, so it was a good time to put in the writeup that Ali (Tad’s player) had written – I’d have hated to see the effort that went into it wasted.
So, with the Quoll ridden, and the meaning of the word “Yeet” discovered, the team arrived in Hong Kong and discovered the Chun Fu martial arts academy, and a little bit of fan service… you see Chun is a real person, my PT who’s been helping me with my weight loss for the last 6 months or so. Along with him, there are a number of other characters who are in or will be appearing in the next short arc that are also found at the gym: Nicola, Simi, Rudi, Ismael, Mikey… a certain amount of liberty has been taken with characters – relocating ethnic backgrounds for one, and I’m pretty sure that Mikey isn’t in fact a troll (though he does hit like one – the whole inspiration for the broken arm scene was listening to Nicola tell us that after padding Mikey when he was practicing his turning kicks, he’d been kicking her so hard she had a headache due to the jarring impacts…)
Looking around, I found a likely theme for the academy, basing it roughly on this building: https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDi...ajie_Hunan.html and using the pictures there to set the tone / feel for the players. After giving them a night to settle in, it was time to show them some of the normal routine with a brief training montage on the beach (if you hum Chariots of Fire, it might be more evocative – or if you have no sense of tune, here’s a handy link for background listening: Vangelis - Chariots Of Fire - YouTube. You’re welcome. *grin*.
One of the things that has always impressed me about what we commonly perceive as the “third world” is how much they’re happy to just grab some tools and get on with a job, without using the tools or aides we probably either take for granted or rely on, mixed with the flagrant disregard for health and safety – as I’m sure anyone who’s seen someone riding a moped with about 197 chickens in boxes balanced on the back will understand.
So, channelling some of the unorthodox exercises that Chun sometimes has for me, with that “JFDI methodology” seen sometimes, I came up with a novel way to get the engines down to the garage where they’re going to be stripped, and also impressing on the players that they’re going to need their co-operation to get them back again!
Next week we start to uncover the plot here, when it turns out that one of Chun’s fighters has been kidnapped, and the triads are trying to put the lean on him to make him come out of retirement and take part in a rigged match. If only there was a team of crack shadowrunners who could go and organise a rescue…

Session notes:
1. Sunday 12/9/2060, Location: 12.76885, 124.05354, Time: 12:00
2. Flying up towards Manila, 10 for stealth, 10 for scan, no encounter, get to Nagsasa cove for 2pm - camo netting, start fuel pumping, Marius gets some rest, everyone else rest/relax/pumping.
3. Aswon - do we want to rest here for 24 hours, get Marius a good rest, leave at dusk tomorrow. Everyone agrees. Aswon calls spook, advises ETA 3-4 hours after dusk.Fuel transfer goes ok
4. Tads doing astral training with Vadim. Go to see the Quoll.
5. Hunter looking for electric pumps / drop tanks - HK best place for it. Kai doing some archery training. Shimazu lockpicking, Aswon SUT.
6. Fast forward to dusk Monday 13/9. Aswon finds grit in the guns, door guns etc. Get Tads to help with an air spirit, cleaning everything. Tads comes back from astral jaunt looking happy - team a little suspicious, check her out, find nothing.
7. Take off, heading to HK, efficiency down to 25%, heading to Shek-O,
8. Call number - sound of martials arts training in the background, Kai talks, get directions to landing in the courtyard - mind the wind.
9. Arrive, get eyes on the structure, very tight - land - ludicrously tight landing. Meet Chun
10. Chun calls Rudi and gets half a dozen students to string up camo nets over the courtyard
11. Clean but run down.
12. Nicole - broken forearm, offers to help = Kai biotech rolls a 10, reduces from a serious to a moderate. Kai politely asks - if magic is ok. They agree. 7 successes, 3 on success, 4 on time.
13. Chun impressed, positive comments. Get them settled into rooms, meet on the veranda in 15 minutes.
14. Now 21:00, Monday 13/9, team settled in to rooms, excellent construction, 500+ years old, positive background count - see chun doing ball push ups.
15. offers food, goes next door, talks to wife, you have to look after the baby
16. "So, what's wrong with your helicopter?" Everyone looks to Marius. Full engine rebuild - I know a guy, down in town, but he's expensive.
17. Calls Marcello, arranges visit in the morning.
18. Wife comes in with sandwiches and crisps. Kai stands respectfully. Some cheese, some ham, some both - do you want ketchup. Kai asks about history - been in the family for generations, lots of training. Kai offers to help. Electrician? We'll have a go...
19. Aswon offers warding, Chun asks for info. Gets an explanation from Shimazu. Talk, eat, takes a while, settles people down, see you in the morning. Aswon asks for help with medicine ball pushups. Aswon calls spook, advises all is ok. Tads gets Marius and hunter through the ward on the tiltwing to break tracking attempts, all go to bed.
20. Up on Tuesday morning 14/9, around 07:00. Team go to do running through the waves. Encouragement and support. Athletics 6 tests for people. Aswon 3, Shimazu 2, Tads 1, Hunter 0, Marius and Kai stay back.
21. Hunter cooing at baby, baby thinks this is amazing - reverse charisma check
22. Marcello arrives, slick italian - so, who is your driver? Aswon - Oh jeeves! Marius dirty look. Examines the landing spot, distance, impressed. So - what happened here. Volcanic ash. Marius - about 4-5 days. Concur - but waiting on parts. Get them down to me. Student stumbles.
23. Aswon calls spook to arrange a meeting, Spook - call you later. Aswon bunks off anyway.
24. Walk to Giovanchis, Hunter helps with the 2nd team. Tads offers water. Marius stays with engines, Aswon bunked off, rest coming back with students to training hall.
25. Hunter looking for local aircraft graveyards, just in case...
26. Stop.
Strangely enough, very brief notes this week, but it was 13,500 words of writeup…

Background notes / plot points:
Once past the encounter, 500km will empty the remaining fuel and get them to west of Manila on the coast for a manual refuel
From there, it's 1000km to Hong Kong - Aswon needs to chase Spook for the contact details for Chun
Chun - small town of 'Shek O' on the east side. (instagram, looking over the ropes)
https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDi...ajie_Hunan.html
Three sided building, training hall, living accommodation, central courtyard - just big enough for the tilt-wing to land in (very restricted terrain, mountain downdrafts, +6 TN)
Tilt-rotor value= 3million. Damage = 20%, so a book repair cost of 600k i.e. more than the team have. Chun can call in some favours to get some parts, access to tools etc. Pitch is as expensive, though if the team are willing to help out with some stuff around the temple, that would help.
Jobs on site - rewire, cleaning, plumbing, roof repairs, cleaning outside.
Gym is clean, but run down - lots of little jobs needed doing. Keeps meaning to, but always tomorrow. Too busy training.
Chun B6 Q7 S6 C5 I5 W3 R6 Init 4D6+6, CP 7. Human, mid 40s, friendly face, easy going, wheeler-dealer, positive energy, forgetful, slightly disorganised.
Kickboxing 10, all moves, Centering 8 (Counting), TKD 6, Wing chun 5, Instructor 8, Weight training 6, Athletics 8, Biotech 5, Mysticism 5, Tattoos 4
Phys-ad, Grade 5 (Masking, Improved Masking, Advanced Masking, Centering (S+A, Kickboxing), Improved ability Kickboxing 6(3), Increase reactions 3(5), Quick strike (3)
Married, two older children, newborn in the house. Quite westernised, but strong streak of historical culture / mysticism, covered in tattoos with "virtues" e.g Honour, Integrity, Fearlessness

Academy students:
• Harley, Human, Male, Anglo, early 20s, Chun's protege / adopted son
• Nicola, Human, Female, mid 20s, Anglo, senior PT / assistant instructor, A squad fighter / competitor with multiple competition wins. Mundane with top line physical stats
• Simi, Human, Male, late 20s, Carrib, A squad / assistant instructor. Physical adept with boosted fitness / martial arts
• Ismael, Elf, Male, mid 20s, Indian, A squad. Mundane with top line physical stats
• Rudi, Human, Male, late 20s, Kenyan, A squad. Mundane with top line physical stats
• Mikey, Troll, Male, late teens, Bulgarian, A squad. Physical adept with large physical boosts - B13, Q7, S16,
• Hakim, Dwarf, Male, early thirties, Nubian, A squad. Mundane with top line physical stats
• Anna, Female, late twenties, Korean, tall, A squad. Mundane with top line physical stats
• 24 assorted martial arts / K1 / boxing students, mostly very fit and several year veterens in their respective areas, on a 1-4 month residential stays

Day 1 - welcome to the gym, examine the craft, arrange for experts to come. Chance to train, relax, explore a little. Nicola with a broken arm - get Tads to heal?
Day 2 - local fabricators come - agree to take the engines to their shop to work on them. Arrange students to carry the engines down the path to town to the workshop. Workshop has good security, should be safe to leave them there (also do luxury car repairs, some expensive cars from around the island)