3rd edition smuggler campaign writeup, Narrative write up of games - feedback welcome. Options

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 228 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:

So after last weeks little bit of altruism in rescuing the poor Cessna pilot and her stricken bird, I wanted to turn the tables on the players a tiny bit. They were expecting (and not unreasonably) at least a warm welcome and a chance to refuel a bit maybe, get some maps or info, and generally get some kudos for what they’d done.

Instead though, they were going to get the shitty end of the stick, as the Danish authorities realised that a completely unknown aircraft had just “appeared” well inside their airspace, a *military* aircraft by all accounts – and just when the Danish government were convening a special session to discuss terrorist threats in Copenhagen, only 160km away – which for the team to cover would be only a few minutes flight time. That was the “reason” behind what was going to happen, at least – a heightened state of alert generally for the country, completely unknown to the players, and then their appearance triggering a spike of concern.

And then, because Kai sometimes doesn’t always consider his words carefully, when someone headed towards the aircraft, he warns them that there’s a biohazard and chance of infection. To policemen sent to investigate the possible terrorist incursion. For whom English is not their first language.

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. As soon as Fozzy (Kai) got that out of his mouth, I asked the players to pause for a moment, and all they could hear was the rapid fire machine-gun as I frantically made some notes (I have an old mechanical keyboard from the 90s) before then having the team make perception and psychology tests to realise that something had just gone horribly wrong, before quickly moving things along as the situation spiralled out of control – or at least peaceful control. I had no doubt that the locals were well and truly screwed once they got insistent – it was just a case of how firepower the team were going to throw and how much of a forensic nightmare they’d leave behind to haunt them later.
But, they made good decisions, got some lucky / good rolls, got away from the interceptor aircraft as quickly as possible and didn’t make any silly mistakes, and soon we were on our way to Poland.

As they were plotting the route towards the Tatras, I checked on the map and then had to try very hard not to smile as I realised that they’d steered themselves on a route that would pretty much over-fly Auschwitz. As they’d already had one such encounter before in Japan, I got people to make some rolls on skills that might clue them in – and fortunately Kai redeemed himself by getting a stupendous roll here, where both Hunter, Aswon and Marius all failed – so he got to warn them about what was coming.

As they approached, I pasted a number of pictures into the Discord chat to give an overall impression of the mountains and the area
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...tern_side_2.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_Nationa...le:Rysy_006.JPG
In my reading up on the area, I’d also found out that a massive storm hit the place in 2004, causing huge amounts of damage to the forests and people living in the area. So, I decided to shunt forward a copy of this event to the back end of 2060, to give them something else to deal with on their mission.

I used several of the pictures from http://www.eumetrain.org/data/1/10/intro.htm to give an over-view and in the description of ghost villages and dropped forests, again mostly for scene-setting.
When they get round to hunting for bears, rather than a pine forest with room to move under the lower boughs, and lots of clear-ish ground to give reasonable sight lines, instead there will be a tangled mess of trees at all angles, creating a complex climbing frame that will be ideally suited to helping the bears hunt the team as much as the team hunts the bears…

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Friday 11/2/2061, Location: 55.10681, 10.25202, Time 10:30
2. The 4 X 4 approaches, 2 cops, driver, +casual. Aksel approaches, he gets dirty looks from cops who get out. Team has unwarded side door open
3. Kai asks if they want to see IDs, driver nods, police flanking, hands on pistols. Aksel approaches briskly. "There's a chance of infection in there! Wouldn't go near it!" Cops draw their weapons "get down on the ground" - Kai complies. Shimazu in doorway, Aswon watching. Sees muttering, Shimazu sees him saying "frak, that's fraked it!" Kai adds "one of my team has just had surgery, they may be prone to infection!"
4. Shimazu psychology test - Aksel is more worried about the cops than the team. Aura reading - cops have a tiny bit of cyber, major anxiety. Shimazu steps out, hands raised, claims they are doctors, friend had an operation.
5. Aksel comes round, says "they've called Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (PET), get out of here!" Aswon says in Russian "we may need to get out of here in a hurry, Marius ready for dustoff, tads we need a stunball." Tads - not happy, would leave spell signature behind.
6. Shimazu - "you don't want to do this, we're getting back on the plane, don't interfere, or one of you is going to die. Whine of engine triggers reaction, cop #1 shoots Shimazu, nearly all dodge, soaked easily.
7. Tads, Stunball F5, Serious.
8. Officer and coppers both drop instantly - Aksel takes a serious, Shimazu and Kai are fine.
9. Tads starts cleansing. Shimazu pulls Kai up and shoves to the door. Shimazu then clears the guns and puts the safety on. Kai goes to Aksel - police? Soon? "Yes! Soon! Thankyou! Go!!!" Kai goes to give him a card, Shimazu intercepts and takes it.
10. Radio call "you don't have permission to take off, power down immediately" Marius ignores and powers up.
11. Marius handling check, police car comes bouncing over the turf towards them
12. Firefighters think about foaming them, doesn't, just watches them go.
13. Tads summons new spirits, concealment and guard.
14. Marius drops to wave level, EDs to full, change colour to look like sea-water, Tads offers a flat plane illusion above them if they're that low. As starting to cast it, realise they're entering the black tide.
15. Fighter gets close on full afterburner, radar on max flux, gets a 20 + 15, but not quite enough to overcome EDs.
16. About 10mins of very worried flying, before they get too close to Germany, but 2nd+3rd jet start, then turn back.
17. Gain altitude as they get closer to Poland, just short of 1 hour flight time
18. Team discusses if anyone has contacts - Kai, safe house broker only person who might have a place. Decide not to call that in. Aswon looks at map for likely locations in the Carpathian mountains - Skolivski Beskydy National Park - edge of the Tatra Mountains to the south, northern end of the country is a wasteland. Plot a course down there, which will take them over Auschwitz. Checks for Marius and Aswon as being most familiar with the area - no hits.
19. Cross the border into Poland, industrial wasteland, trashed by the war and occupation.
20. Kai checks smuggler route - EXCELLENT roll, picks up on Auschwitz and a thriving trade in artifacts from the site for toxic / violent spells. Plot route well around it.
21. View of mountains posted in, search roll for hunter on the way down
22. Learn about temps, snowfall, storms, abandoned villages, deforestation.
23. Heading to a lake, clear areas around, land and look for firewood. About twenty below, will increase time for tasks and maintenance. About 1500m elevation.
24. 1pm landing time. Tads takes the time to make a raised landing area and ramp to the back ramp.
25. Check around the lake for prints of critters - survival check, don't spot much around the lake. Shimazu (traceless walk) - ground is too frozen solid for decent tracks - not impossible, but much harder than usual.
26. Kai asks what types of spirits tads can summon - sky, lake, mountain, forest. Can they help search for bears? Maybe - depends in the bears are magically active/aware, they might kill the searching spirits.
27. Bear hunting party - Shimazu, Aswon, Kai, Tads,
28. Talk about the blimp - cold will lower performance on the batteries / performance of electrical systems. Aswon suggests alter temperature on the drone. Kai asks for a sensor sweep in the area. Scan shows all quiet. Sat phone is fine, no phone signal. Kai suggests using the last 2 hours of light for a drone scan of the area - check with Marius, drone does have thermo.
29. Alter temp spell, F7, 5 success, +15 degrees, effective -5, off the drone goes.
30. Sensor check on the condor - 3, feeds info back to the team, survival+critters rolls,
31. Creatures: bears, wolves, eurasian lynx, wildcat, tatra chamois, bison, golden eagle.
32. Tads perception check as she's watching the drone/spell. Sends F5 air spirit to defend the drone. Confusion. Tads warns Marius.
33. Tads suggests a dawn recon as well, just to confirm

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 229 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
First of all, I’d worked on two quick random charts for determining the weather here, and the possible critters to run into once they made it into the woods, with a check every hour or two.
Weather -
Precipitation 1-2 Storm, 3-5 Rain, 6 Clear
Wind 1 Storm, 2-3 Strong, 4-5 Mild, 6 Still
Temp Negative 30+(5Xd6)

Critter random rolls
1 - Wolves
2 - Lynx
3 - Nothing
4 - Nothing
5 - Chipmunk critters
6 - bears

While they are out by the lake, I was happy for them to just be – there’s no real activity in the area, and nothing would happen to them other than environmental stuff. Even a major storm was unlikely to bother them too much – with a few minutes notice, Tads can effectively build an earth/rock igloo around them and cover them to protect them from even the worst weather now. Shape earth and a high-level caster for the win!
I also had no particular requirement for how soon or how late they should encounter the Bears – after some time constrains and pressure on them previously, I felt it was time to give them some breathing room and let them slow down a little if they wanted to – after all, that will then allow me to pile the pressure on them again later and have them really feel it!

They have other jobs and tasks of course – the one for Germaine being the most pressing, but even there a few days either way shouldn’t make any real difference.
I’d hoped that both Hunter and Marius would come with the hunting team, to keep them all together and stop people being bored back at base camp – but they seemed fairly determined to stay there. Sometimes I will railroad the players and force them into doing stuff, but normally I try and limit that to when it really makes sense IC to do so, rather than for OC reasons. So, if those two players decide to stay back at the tilt-wing, then I’m content (not happy – but content) to let them do so, and from my POV, they have accepted at least part of the responsibility for not having as much plot / game involvement as the other players.

With that said, I tried to keep things moving along with the hunting team, moving them from one encounter to another and cracking on with the action. Even so, it was getting close to our normal finishing time when the Bear encounter was rolled up – so I was watching carefully when we ran through the ambush and surprise round. The players were *very* fortunate here in that the Bears got a bit of a rubbish roll for the ambush itself, allowing both Aswon and Shimazu to get some reaction strikes in and actually manage to kill one of the Bears in that first round – which is going to really alter the odds in the main fight, and when the first bear reinforcements arrive.

Balancing that out somewhat, their mage and main healer is on a moderate wound, and Kai is on a serious – and is down to his last point of good karma, so it’s looking a lit bit dicey from his POV! The team also went through 7 re-rolls between them in the space of about 20 minutes as it all got a bit “in their face”. Aswon/Jez in particular choked somewhat when the Bears were hitting the team for 9D armour piercing – though he had to admit that if anything was going to rend through personal armour, a 2.5m high, 675kg bear would be a good target for that ability.

So – next week we’ll be straight into combat – and I’m *really* looking forward to the look on Tom/Shimazu’s face when he uses his Quick Strike power to jump to the top of the initiative order and get first go… and then the “grizzled” bear variation uses the same power to gazzump him. I don’t think it will win combat against him – but it might give him a wakeup call!!!

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Weather for today is...4,4,4 = Rain, mild wind from the south, -10C, Justin mentioned that they were all doomed for rolling the same result three times in a row…
2. Tads fixes the Photo-voltaics on the hull from the Danish cops shooting at them – tiny bullet holes using fix spell.
3. Kai thinks about selling the interceptor data from Denmark on Shadowland. Hunter - probably not, not getting locked up on radar, not enough useful data - but might help gain kudos.
4. Tads - also worth getting hold of Aksel to find out what was going wrong? Hunter search on Aksel Sorensen and Melanie to find out contact details. Sorenson flight training, small micro site on a Nokia account. Melanie social media - only qualified about a week before encounter.
5. Hunter, does more diagnostics on Marius to establish a baseline. VCR settled, wires still needs work - needs the stress reaction.
6. Kai - armour and weather proofing, bow+selection of arrows, weapon foci.
7. Tads - quick astral recon, most of the critters are staying in the forest. Marius sensor check - confirms, thermal sigs somewhat washed out. Weather not helping, but can see 6-10 groups that might be bear sized - or groups of small creatures. Aswon asks if its worth doing another day of observations - but low cloud cover limits options.
8. Kai - can we do recon with little spirits - Tads, might get murdered, depend on what magical critters are about, may alert the bears and other critters.
9. Marius - will have the vector thrust on standby, probably only <2min response time
10. Hunter plot route between the three most likely targets, Aswon look at making a shelter for Hunter outside to keep him warm and dry (meh roll)
11. Critter roll = 2 - lynx, stealth 14, team got 11s (tads and aswon), others nothing. Sense of being watched. walking through awful terrain.
12. Marching order = Shimazu, Aswon, Tads then Kai.
13. Kai reaction check - 1, it only gets 1, Lynx jumps at the quiver and grabs some arrows, Kai dodges. Tads assenses - paracritter, but not spirit
14. Roll init - Aswon 22, Shimazu 21, Tad 9, Kai - NA, Lynx 14 - slice as it tried to go mist form, magic background checks. Aswon starts to scoop up, rest of pack attack. First goes for Shimazu, gets spitted, 2nd goes for Kai hits but soaked, 3rd Aswon - it takes an L, 4th Aswon, it takes an M, 5th and final...also Aswon. Hits for 5S, soaked. Aswon fights back - takes a 5m - takes Light-buys 1, full soak, Tads sidesteps, shielding on team and then drops a stunball. Casting F5 stunball Moderate, all the lynx go down, none of the team affected.
15. Tads - can we just leave them? Aswon - no, free money. Aswon considers - conversation mostly with himself about Elk, use of magic, self-defence. Kill the moderate wounded one - Aswon thanks the forest.
16. Tads heals Kai and the Light wound lynx, leave to recover off the path draped over a branch. Get the moderate and deadly one, and harvest for talismongering. Tads suggest keeping the mostly intact one as the "before" to go with the half mist form one.
17. Talismonger the dead one - get paws, ears and some other bits. Aswon asks Tads to do makeover to de-scent anyone covered in blood. Tads flash freezes the two corpses.
18. Next encounter - nothing, 1 hour searching - nothing. And again - nothing, now about 11am. Aswon stops team and listens really hard - nothing.
19. Onwards, next roll, Fozzy jokes, then rolls a 6 – suddenly Bears!
20. Small bears 4 on stealth, big bear 13! Perception checks
21. Shimazu 15, Marius 8, Tads 13, Kai 11, Aswon 11
22. Bear 1 - Aswon, 1 ambush, Aswon 2 - not surprised
23. Bear 2 - Tads, 2 ambush, Tads 2 -
24. GB 3 - Kai, 2 ambush, Kai none
25. Aswon stabs his, wins by 7, 11D, gets 2 success, takes a serious
26. Tads gets hit, takes an 8D, gets 1, RR, another 1,buy 2, take a moderate
27. Kai takes a massive hit, soaking 10D, none RR, 1, 2nd RR, gets 1 more, takes an S -
28. Shimazu quick strike on Aswon's bear - kills it.
29. End session at the end of the surprise round, just before we roll initiative for the fight versus the two remaining bears.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 230 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:

Well! Straight into combat this week, rolling initiative and having the bears which landed and damaged both Tads and Kai turning to engage Aswon and Shimazu. On random rolls, they both went for the bigger of the two, double-teaming Shimazu. Shimazu/Tom looked slightly surprised and then put out when the bear gazumped him with it’s quick strike and went first, and then the team realised they were in trouble with the size of the bears attack pool, and the damage that Shimazu took.
I had originally been planning on having 1 additional bear land into combat, to tie up one of the other players and limit the “friends in the melee” (FITM) options a little, but on seeing how the first soak roll went, I decided to skip that, and keep it in my back pocket, rather than have it join. Legitimately there was no way Marius or Hunter were going to get to the combat in time, and I felt that with the stats the bears had, it would have slid from just being a very dangerous encounter to something that would have wiped them out very rapidly. I could have gone with WP tests to stay conscious for someone, and have the bears drag the others off back to their lair perhaps, but while that might have worked, I didn’t want to roll the dice on that and lose 2-3 characters all in one encounter, just to bad luck.

So, with one bear pulled, and Shimazu feeling he had to take the super-duper combat drugs, it was time to have a serious fight.
The “X-49” combat drug is an experimental concoction from Ludmilla the mad scientist in Russia – a very unethical person who is all about the testing of drugs on people without consent and other such things.
The drug has the following SR3 stats: Gives +1D6 init, +4 strength, +2 reaction, pain resistance 5 for 1D6 minutes, -1 to any ranged attacks due to shaking. Melee hits against enemies also cause Str/2(M) against the user from muscle tears. When effects wear off, soak Str(S) on body, and take +1 "jitters" for 1D6X10 minutes to all actions. Highly addictive – 6M/6P, Tolerance 2, Edge 2/8, Fix 1 day

With this being the second dose that Shimazu had taken it was time to see if he’d gotten hooked – but that could wait until after combat. With his extra strength and pain resistance, it was just enough to turn the tide on combat and let him start to get some hits in that did damage on the bear, and whittle it down. It was still a very close run thing though, as both the bears had pain-resistance critter powers, so until they were very nearly dead, they operated without penalties.
I expected Tads to go for her signature massive stun-ball (the bears had low WP and would have dropped like sacks of spuds) but she was so worried about her wound and knocking herself out, that she felt she had to engage in HTH to try and play it safe – knowing she’d do no damage with her low strength, but helping with the FITM modifier.

With the odds tipped in their favour slightly, and blowing through 11 re-rolls between them, and about 5 good karma, they eventually triumphed. Shimazu now has no re-rolls left, and thus no hand of god, and Kai is down to 1 good karma, so he’s pretty close as well. They definitely know they’ve been in a fight, and are expecting a decent reward from this one!!

After that, it was a tidy up, some talismongering and getting away. One really high sensor check on the border meant that someone got a hit on them, so I figured the ski-resort might be a good flavour encounter for them – they’ve now added “ski-resorts” to their list of things to look for on border crossings, so that’s a thing…
Down to Bulgaria for the fuel at the stop they’ve used before, for a nice quiet and quick visit. If anyone is curious about the ponds of coloured water, if you do a Google Maps search for 42.56711, 27.48546, you can see what I was describing. I have no idea what they are in real life, but they look interesting, so I made them a feature of some corporate process that involves all kinds of icky chemicals from some uncaring corp. Because Shadowrun, yo.

After that, a nice simple run across the Black Sea, and off to go and meet Georgi and offload 300 kg of raw bear telesma. The bears were originally supposed to net them 43K, but I’m inclined to think they probably deserve a bit more that that – what do you all think? More Nuyen, or a favour, or some enchanting materials, or something else? Or give them my blackened stone heart and feast upon their tears?

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Saturday 12/2/2061, Location: 49.2349, 19.99965, Time 11:00
2. Summary from previous session: Kai S(P), Tads M(P), Aswon L(P), Shimazu - ok
3. Roll initiative: Shimazu 26, Big bear 20, Aswon 18, New bear 16, Small bear 13, Kai 12, Tads 4
4. Grizzled bear jumps to top: Both it and Shimazu use RR, both get 20 success, base hit on Shimazu, 10D half armour, gets 3 with RR, buys 1, takes an M.
5. Shimazu on 25 - WP test, fails injects compound X-49, +2 init, +2 reaction, pain resistance 5. Shimazu 11, Bear 9, it soaks, RR, gets 6, takes a Light
6. Aswon on 18s, hits 17, RR 18 hits, vs Bear 2. Bear gets 9!!! 6s, soaks entirely.
7. small bear on Shimazu on 13, 6 vs 10, soaks to an S
8. Marius turns off all safety protocols and max's everything on hearing the combat going badly
9. Kai shoots grizzled bear with Taser, 9s to hit into combat with wound modifiers, gets 1, rr, gets 4. Bear soaking 9d+9m, soaks to Serious stun, second shot misses
10. Tads (4) attacks with pole, getting FITM again, 1 rr 2, bear 2, 6m stun, soaked
11. Shimazu on 17s - hits 11, bear 4, soaks to a light wound
12. Grizzled bear back, 5 vs 8, takes 13s, takes an S
13. small bear, 1 vs 8, 14D to soak, takes a serious left forelimb off
14. Aswon on 8s, attacks grizzled, centering 2+attack 11, net 6, drops the grizzled bear.
15. Small bear on Shimazu, 2 vs 10, takes a serious, both down.
16. End of combat.
17. Shimazu soaking damage from muscle tears, takes 2 lights. Quivering and bruising appearing.
18. Tads starts drawing in mana for self-heal, Aswon checks the trees - look clear, Marius goes fast, but not crazy.
19. Tads gets 2 successes, drops her to a light, ignores from edge, now effectively fine. Moves on to Shiamzu, fixes all
20. Aswon first aid on Kai - takes him down to a moderate.
21. Tads moves on to Kai, fixes him to zero.
22. Drugs work for 2 minutes, so about 90 seconds left. Tads puts up resistance and detect magic. Aswon starts to dismember and talismonger.
23. Shimazu pulls out one of the grizzled bears biggest incisors.
24. Get an idea on the bears - quick strike, adaptive colouration+concealment.
25. Drugs wear off, 30 minute aftershocks, soaks damage to a Light from the last spasm,
26. No random encounter for 1 hour while the team talismonger.
27. Tads - rather than us walking back, can we get the tilt-wing to come to us and levitate the stuff and us up, to it.
28. Aswon checks up the trees for loot, just finds the jumping off point.
29. Back up and into the tilt-wing via levitate.
30. Kai calls smuggler stop in Bulgaria near coloured ponds for refuel, 160 degrees, 933 km. Marius calls Georgi - picks up, hellos, explains they have 3 bears, will be coming, still several hundred km away, asks to go to farm outside Tbilisi.
31. Shimazu gets one success on addiction test.
32. Fly down through Slovakia - straight over a radar station.
33. Tads offers to cast influence on Shimazu to help him resist. He thinks he needs to resist on his own, otherwise he's not worth it. Tads - but part of a team, Shimazu still refuses.
34. Fly over ski resort, radar lash, but get away ok.
35. Down to Bulgarian smuggler stop, "geological eye shadow" land ok and top up
36. Take-off, over the black sea, avoid the Turkish coast, and to Tbilisi
37. Arrive at farmhouse for around 19:00, circle, looks ok, comes in to land.
38. Skolivski Beskydy National Park - edge of the Tatra Mountains to the south, up to 140in snowfall, temps down to -40 in winter (temps below zero for 192 continuous days normal)
39. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_Mountai...tern_side_2.jpg
40. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_Mountai...le:Rysy_006.JPG
41. Massive storm late last year - Three million cubic metres of trees were uprooted
42. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_Mountai...Tatra_storm.jpg
43. Warbears - 43k (Georgi) Claws, teeth, bones and hearts
44. "Very tough armoured hides, huge and powerful" adaptive colouration, ambush predators (maybe even dropping from trees – let’s steal from Australia and make it *even more dangerous* for a novel twist), with hardened armour and either regeneration or large amounts of pain resistance, big powerful creatures with large claws that can provide plenty of reach and a serious challenge to the team
45. Carpathian Bears - about 1.75m high at the shoulders, 4m when stood on hind legs, weighing 650-675kg.Bark coloured mottled fur

46. Powers: Enhanced Physical Attribute (Bod, E X 2D6 turns), Enhanced Reactions, Enhanced senses (Thermo, Hearing, Electrical disruption), Adaptive Colouration(TN10 stationary, 8 moving +2 ranged attack always), Concealment(+6 TN to spot), Quick strike
47. Standard bear: B11, Q4 X5, S14, C0, I2/4, W4, E6, R3(11), CP10, Init 2d6+6, Attacks 9D half armour, Reach +1, Pain resistance 5. KP 5, armour 3
48. Grizzled bear: B15, Q5 X5, S16, C0, I3/6, W5, E6, R4(12), CP12, Init 3d6+8, Attacks 10D half armour, Reach +2, Pain resistance 8. KP 10, , armour 5,Quick strike

[Kren Cooper]

Marius is on his way home, earlier than expected - he's left the rest of the team except Hunter, and is flying back to the ranch to go see Nadia and Marius Jr.

Nadia has not seen him since the surgery.
The surgery where his entire skin was replaced with a kevlar/plastic dermal layer designed to provide ballistic armour.
The surgery that has left him with a palpable and obvious "action man" texture.
How do you think she's going to handle this?
And what about Marius junior???

I'm thinking the kid is going to go mental, and scream whenever he's touched by the bad plastic alien thing that doesn't feel like daddy anymore. (The child is now about 2 months old BTW)

I'm thinking that Nadia is going to be *unimpressed*.

But any suggestions as to how she addresses this?

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 231 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
First of all, here are the few notes I had set up for the location:
1. Arriving at Songbird's residence, Georgi Kolarov is also there to handle the introductions and then leave - he has the newer 4X4
2. Songbird has a music studio / enchanting lab that she will probably let the team into to offload the stuff, once she has them checked out and vouched for
3. Her house is a long, low, traditional looking building, wooden construction, but with lots of modern features worked into the design, modern appliances, household drones etc. Security is very high, quite expensive – but she has a lot of valuable gear inside
4. Original offer = 43k. For the haul, now offers base of 75k, may be haggled up to 85k

Items to purchase
1. Thunderbolt (Sonic Wail)- A silver tuning fork. Force 6, casts with 10 dice. Cost 20K
2. Thunderclap (Crescendo) - A bronze cymbal. Force 8, casts with 10 dice, Cost 26K
3. Stealth - A sheet of hand pressed paper with musical staves - empty, Force 4, casts with 10 dice, Cost 14k
4. Manabolt - A pair of vertebrae from a big cat, Force 8, cast with 10 dice, Cost 26K
5. Decrease cyber reaction 3 - A strip of electric eel nerves, Force 7, casts with 6 dice, Cost 25k
6. Control Pack - A beeswax stick, Force 6, casts with 10 dice, Cost 20k
7. Fetishes at 90% base price
8. Expendable spell focus at 90% base, up to F6
9. Warding materials at 90%

A nice social encounter for the team now, and a chance to make a new contact, and to give them an alternate enchanter to work with, as well as a source for future talismongering jobs. No real risk (as long as Nadia doesn’t find out how pretty Songbird is anyway), plenty of rewards – just what we need to calm the team down after a frantic fight.
One thing to note here is that this shows a major departure we have in our homebrew “3.5” from the published 3rd edition – particularly with the metamagic Anchoring. As it read in the book, we thought it was an *awful* technique – so badly balanced that nobody in their right mind would take it. What sensible mage would give someone an item with a permanent link back to them, and the ability to inflict a deadly stun at any time, day or night, without warning? Nobody, that’s who. There’s not enough money in the world to do it. So it’s just a pointless metamagic that nobody ever took.
So, I developed it into three “tiers”, to try and fix it. The first tier is pretty much the version from the book. The 2nd tier though – “Improved Anchoring” allows you to start to improve on things – letting you lock up a karma reroll into the drain/casting, and giving 2X grade in your linking pool thanks to your better control. Still not great, but better.

The real money though is in the “Expert Anchoring”. This not only lets you sever the link between item and enchanter, stopping it being a live trail – it lets you do the drain test at the point of creation, as well as further reducing the target number for creation. Suddenly, there’s much less risk to giving someone the “magic bomb” – you’re not going to take a 5D drain out of the blue when they use it to assassinate the target, it’s already dealt with. Now you have an expensive – but workable – technique. It takes some investment to get there, but then you have an income stream that makes sense in the world.
I still don’t see many players going down this route – but it becomes feasible and rational for an NPC to do so (such as Songbird) and to actually exist in game.
Several of the team were really interested in the items, and found themselves wanting two or more of them, but then having to reign themselves in due to the costs – as of the end of the session, they still haven’t decided what to get with their “store credit”, so I suspect that’s going to be the question at the start of Tuesday’s session for the magic users.
And the other question is going to be of course, just how Nadia reacts to Marius and his upgrades.

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Saturday 12/2/2061, Location: 41.88885, 44.78971, Time 19:00
2. Just landing in clearing. Shimazu meditating, Aswon on watch via prism - sees the force 3 watcher spirit pop out of the chimney.
3. Marius lands carefully, 30m away. Georgi comes out, lights up cigar, wanders in their direction a bit until he can see swaying plants.
4. Leave spirit concealment up. Georgi stops, and waits for team. Marius stops engines. Georgi stays, now looking at the lights from the back ramp, waits. Kai comes out with flashlight, syas hello, Georgi heads back to porch to wait in rocking chair.
5. Aswon opens collar to show his tattoos subtly. Georgi knocks on door, calls songbird, she comes out, looks, magical looks, advises to go round the side otherwise the wards will go off. Team looks, spots F12 alarm ward.
6. Walk down the side of the building, one way glass, team check security. Spot the security mesh in the wall. Spot the t, barn doors, open ward. Doors are high tech, have sensors too and cables to the walls.
7. Into the warehouse, say hello, Songbird thanks Georgi, flips him a chip, finish your drink, Songbird says hello to marius, sashays. Handshake, well manicured, gentle handshake. Kai buts in, do you want to know the story of how we got the stuff, don't want to disappoint you. Aswon - we have the audio transcript to reassure you there was no gunfire.
8. Do you have the things, a bag? Explain that's most of the bear. Tads goes to Levitate the first pile in.
9. Turns to Georgi - how well do you know people? No offence. Georgi... I'd lend Marius my phone, the rest - well Marius trusts them. Hunter - and I'm the godfather of his child! Others roll eyes. Tads - well, some bear is worth money, lots of bear is worth more, right?
10. Sliding door open with code - enchanting studio. Clears table space, how much more ? I'll get another table.
11. Aswon - she's pleased then? Tads, I think so. Aswon brings Lynx parts. Closes outer doors with a remote. Offers drinks and food, Aswon asks for jerky - she offers georgian goulash. Drones come out and start tending. Tell me your story. Tads - can show you. Entertainment? Well, phantasm. Kai offers mindlink - oh yes! Much more emotion. Tads tries to offer recording from the mindlink. She sets up recording studio, frantically scribbling, gets keyboard. Starts laying down a beat. Aswon looks for shamanic mask - gets pheonix / firebird, Shimazu aura reading.
12. Kai - not noticed a pattern to her questions, lots of emotional stuff. Stops team fight, listens to Hunter and Marius and gets their emotional input too.
13. Blasts out song lyrics. Now, got it. Obviously there's a lot more here than I was expecting - what are you after?
14. Well, we like money, but we're happy to do trade in kind, even stuff for later, credit etc.
15. She asks them to drop masking and observe, notes that Aswon has looked but not pried. Team drop masking one by one, let her look, she lets them look at her.
16. Shimazu aura reading - impressed and slightly intimidated.
17. Goes to wall safe, very high tech opening, gets stealth spell. Asks about lynx encounter. Talk about more stealth rather than invisibility.
18. Describes tear on use, Aswon asks about drain, she says no.
19. Kai asks for clarification on duration. She explains about tear on use, keep ing in pockets of trousers.
20. Aswon offers to trade for knowledge, masking in the future. Tads offers mana smoothing, but isn't sure if it works on a ritual level.
21. Starts to show her inventory - Kai wondering if worth getting for resale value. Aswon not sure, based on rep.
22. Aswon texts Kai - we do have a scale, not saying we sell it, that wasn't the deal - but she might be able to do something with it for us.
23. Shows the decrease cyber, tickles Aswon, mild shock, Tads recognises spell, but not level.
24. Recognises the control pack anchor.
25. Last of all shows the bulks stuff
26. Aswon asks how many other talismongers / enchanters she knows, offer her a card, maybe they can facilitate.
27. Ask for her card, get her demo chip, Aswon, asks for a dozen to hand out - she says no, wants to go on reputation.
28. Kai - we're after 50k Nuyen for the fuel and stuff, maybe some other stuff. See about spell trading with tads, She's interested in Heal F6, Treat mundane, Trid Phantasm 6, Vehicle Mask 7, Shape earth 7, Alter temp 7, Treat 7, Fix 7, Mass oxygenate 1
29. Stomping noise - Georgi in a chair in the corner, stamping on the ground to the beat.
30. Talk about staying the night, for spell exchange between Tads and Songbird.
31. Kai offers to broker. She's not so keen, wants to know the people she's selling to, and how they will use stuff. Kai explains that people are generally aligned with them, like the shamen with the dead wife - she starts to scribble stuff down. Aswon interupts - whoa, you're using our material.
32. Tads - I don't know if this is a good or a bad idea, but if you like stories... I know a creature, but you have to go out of body. Aswon - I know where this is going...
33. Get 50k, she offers 7.5k for lynx on top of the 25k store credit. Hunter and Marius go to drink with Georgi.
34. Marius int check - He and hunter go back in the bird, get Georgi to take them back to Tblisi and train back to Baku, pick them up from there.
35. Kai makes a subtle enquiry about drug addiction spells, gets dirty look from Shiamzu.He looks insulted. Shimazu joins the team going home.
36. Karoke, Tads sings the song used during Dragonspine, Aswon talks about breathing, she is super interested in that, wants to learn.
37. Aswon - you have to talk to Nadia and find out about her reaction to his new skin... Tads not keen, Kai and Aswon *very* interested... "for team morale!"

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 232 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
An odd one this week – we were two people down with Hunter’s player being out of the country for work, and Shimazu having to work overtime at fairly short notice. As we only found out on the day, and with the situation as it was, we ran anyway – as the action was mostly going to be focussed around Marius and the team still at Songbird’s place.
So – starting off with Marius. He’d had (in my opinion) a pretty easy run so far. Nadia is strong willed and knows what she wants, and equality for women has definitely become a major part of her life, and they’ve had the occasional argument – but generally speaking, life has been reasonably smooth for him. He certainly wasn’t expecting the baby – but after several nights of “couple time” and no mention of any precautions taken, well – biology. It’ll get ya…

But coming home having your entire surface skin replaced with a ballistic ortho-weave Kevlar hybrid that makes you look like an action man… nah. She’s not standing for that. It was time for some full bore circular logic – some “I don’t care that you’ve just explained it to me simply using language I understand, I’m going to demand the same thing in a slightly different way, ignoring what you’ve just said. (Any resemblance to some of my users at work is *purely* co-incidental you understand!)
With Marius walking on eggshells and spending the night on the couch, he found himself somewhat sidelined as Nadia was detailing her terraforming plans to Hunter – but Marius swallowed his pride and did his best to be a supportive and loving husband. He’s not out of the doghouse yet, but hopefully Nadia will come around to the idea once she’s had time to get used to it. And Marius Jr will never be short of a chewable dummy, on the plus side… 😊
Shimazu went into the “blanket box” and went off camera to go meditate in the hills (and hopefully not fall down any holes into subterranean lairs this time!)

Meanwhile, team magic discovered that the train from Tbilisi to Baku is not exactly a regular service (IRL, it’s actually only once per day according to the websites I checked, but the duration is correct – an 11 hour journey). I’d planned to give them the taxi ride back for more money but much shorter duration, and get them back to the ranch to meet up with the rest, and be ready to head out on Germaine’s job.

But instead – they decided to stay with the train and go exploring the city instead. So, all aboard the train – destination improv-central. Calling at frantically-checking-the-map, making-shit-up, rolling-with-the-punches and finally arriving at look-pictures-from-the-zoo. Google maps, was as ever a life saver, and after pulling up the rather sad looking pictures of Tbilisi zoo and referencing the Wikipedia article, I managed to spin out a whole bunch of description for the zoo for them – which then spurred another tangent derailing as they started to work out how to suborn the zoo and turn it into a money laundering / certificate generating asset.
The perils of running a sandbox. Sometimes you find the strangest things in the corners.
In between making notes of them chatting away and planning coup d’états though I got a good look at the articles on Tbilisi and the geography, and could start to fill in some more details, including some info on the local security considerations, which no doubt will be useful later.

Eventually we get the team all back together, so with any luck next session we’ll be off to Muscat to break into an insurance company office to look at the data they have, and start tracking down the runners who torched the gallery and stole Germaine’s stuff.
When the team find out exactly which runners it is – I don’t think they’ll have any moral problems making an example of them… :-O


And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Sunday 13/2/2061, Location: , Time 00:30
2. Ranch team:
3. Arrive back just after midnight, most people are asleep - but coming in will wake up Nadia. Bad reaction on seeing Marius - gasp of surprise and fear, has he been burnt.
4. "Have you been in a fire?"
5. "No, new implants, settling down phase. Don't know how it will be once bedded down."
6. "She saw someone wearing a mask like that after a cooker fire, until their skin got better."
7. "This is my skin, this is how it is."
8. Discover it's all over, doesn't like it. Wants him to take it off. On finding out it's not like a suit, wants it uninstalled. Very stubborn - it's not you, it's not right.
9. Charisma test (pass) perception test (pass) - Nadia mardy / upset. Marius asks if he should go sleep downstairs - she gets him a pillow.
10. Will argue and send Marius to go sleep on the sofa downstairs.
11. In the morning, family try to creep about, but Marius up at once to avoid uncomfortable situation.
12. Shimazu out at dawn to go mediate on the mountains. Grabs food and water and heads out on his own.
13. Marius Jr will have a fear reaction to the skin, start to blubber, try to reach for his mom. She gives an "I told you so".
14. Marius points out that he didn't ask for it, wasn't his choice, not a lot he can do about it.
15. "what's the name of the doctor, I'll call him and sort it out, tell him you need to see him". Marius explains it's a black facility, no number to call.
16. Nadia explains about work done - Purchased and needs paying for: Vehicle shop purchased and being installed, 30k
17. She explains irrigation plans, Marius goes out of his way to be loving and supportive husband.
18. Planned and wants funds for: Has planned out irrigation system for the area and mountains, needs Tads to dig her 4 wells, and about 8km of irrigation trenches. She has 2nd hand pipes coming. (6k pipes, .25k labour per 500m, 13k per km new, 6.5k 2nd hand, total=50k ish
19. Consult with Hunter - Test vs TN4 for (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Botany, Geology, Ecology, Logistics and Engineering), then count up the successes
20. 1-3: Sounds like a reasonable plan, it should make the area look nicer and the ranch will make more money
21. 4-5: What Nadia is planning will likely shift weather patterns in the area somewhat, due to the abrupt elevation changes and type of terrain. Might want to do further research on the plan and the impact
22. 6-7: It's not by design, but probably what she is planning will result in terraforming the area. If trees take hold on the slopes, catching moisture laden air pushed east, it will result in something akin to a rain shadow in the area - the ranch will need to look at drains, but it will become much nicer and more temperate, though could cause some unexpected weather events.
23. 8+: If the treeline can be established and shaped / managed, then the prevailing winds are likely to alter - not by much, but some - due to the changes in terrain and biosystem. It *might* lead to some opportunities for things like para-sailing and kart-kiting, but it could also lead to small twisters or dust-devils in mid-summer.
24. Magic team: Stay the night at Songbirds, chance for Tads to teach one spell. She goes for vehicle mask. Tads teaching test - gets only one success, but it's a good one. (27) Tads makes food to say thankyou, oblivious to Songbird. Aswon and Kai notice but say nothing. At end Aswon says "this is why we get her to make ingredients" Songbird "all my stuff comes out of packets, the robots cook it... I'll give it away in the village"
25. Journey back to Tiblisi with Georgi in the 4X4, to the train station, 11 hour journey, 448km... tickets are 20 NY each.
26. Team start to look around, do tourist stuff, look for talismonger shop
27. Find a talismongers, mostly fake - anti-immortal elf cream, etc. Only a few warding materials, at about 150%
28. Monasteries, zoo, old churches - Aswon wants to go to the zoo.
29. Zoo is run badly, tired, run down, dirty, small animal selection, all a bit depressing. Tads suggests Hunter and Kai chat, Hunter does research, then Kai gets Nadia put on the board to get them organised.
30. Survival check for Aswon/Tads - possibly good place to launder animals through, as well as cash.
31. Aswon gets a bunch of weighted gloves for the team, no shock gloves. No guns for general civilian purchase.
32. Taxi outside shop - Aswon want restaurant for swanky meal
33. back would cost 500Ny for 415km, and take about 4-5 hours...turn down.
34. Go for a nice meal, bottle of wine, 100 Nuyen for the 3. check out the town for police presence and general population. Foot heavy, drone and magic light. Talking with locals, especially shops - really impressed with Aswons efforts to use local language.
35. Scout out the higher class / more affluent areas, getting a feel for police presence.
36. On the train, poor quality, cold, slow, but picturesque. Arrange for Hunter to come get them Monday morning.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 233 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
We were down one player this week, so a little less banter than usual – and there was a lot of investigation / planning as well, with some very strange lines of questioning, and me trying various different types of poker face as they discussed them and followed up on some of them.
It seemed to take a good while, but eventually the team as a whole realised that what they needed to do was get the bird fuelled up, and get on their way do to Muscat to do an old-fashioned B&E job into the security company to get at the data they needed – which would include the police reports about the strange ritual cuttings and several victims found in the area (including the room they were using to do their obs of the museum/gallery), tying this strange MO to the team that did the break-in. THEN – when they discover a police report that has just come in that night and was waiting to be added to the case about a poor shepherd over to the west in the desert interior that had been cut in a ritualistic fashion, they’ve finally got a lead to go on – and they can start tracking the other team through various gulf countries by the string of mutilations left in their wake, trying to catch up with them.
This should lead them on a merry chase through various countries then, allowing them to slowly catch up with the enemy team – at least as long as Hunter keeps making the hacking rolls, or they manage to sweet talk villagers / policemen along the way – and try to get to them before they dispose of the painting or disappear for good.

I’m not sure if I was too subtle with the clues for this one, or if the team are just trying really hard not to do the travel and incur the expenses, but they seemed really reluctant to just go and do the legwork, even when Hunter was not getting much in the way of joy early in the evening with his data-searches or avenues of investigation.
One of the things I try not to do though is rail-road the players, and leave it open so that if they discover a new way of doing something, or an alternative I haven’t considered, that they have an equally valid way of “solving” whatever problem I’ve put in their path. Of course, sometimes that means frantically floundering around in the water, splashing everything and everyone around them while I’m just thinking *really hard* at them “stand up – the water’s only 3 foot deep!”.

Ahh, the perils of being a GM and having perfect knowledge of how the puzzle is supposed to be solved…


And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Monday 14/2/2061, Location: 40.02426, 48.95799, Time 08:50
2. Quick recap - getting details of the dossier. Kai - search for bloodlines, history of the art, grudges from painting/artist etc? Anyone have any contacts? Marius - mentions Mossad contact. But curious about why the team is double-crossing - odd if it was just for extra money. Maybe hired by someone else and pretending to take the job - won't damage their rep later. Kai - asks Hunter to find out if it was restored recently, may have been sampled or tested? May be able to use as a ritual link? Marius - good plan, maybe also find out if artwork is out on the market. Kai: or collectors of that style of art, or artist - trying to finish their collections?
3. Shimazu - worth asking Germaine if she has any enemies or prior issues that might be a factor? More intel?
4. Kai - can we do ritual tracking? Tads - no, need a 2nd mage. Also need a lodge or circle, but need the 2nd mage most of all. Discussion about phys-ad with projection - but minutes not hours. Marius - astral quest? TN probably high, very dangerous.
5. Hunter searches - no art collectors / particular info on the artist or painter currently known / under discussion. Oman insurance - good security, all offline - need physical access to servers, they are hyper-cautious about connectivity to the matrix due to some incident in the past, but they still use hard-copy and OCR to gather some data!
6. Looking at the news articles on the incident again, somewhat faded away now after 9 days.
7. Marius calls Michael David. Checks ID, you dropped off the radar a bit. Been working on the downlo-got an interesting one, runner by the name of "Dice" and their team have disappeared, hired to find them - you have any files? We like to stay appraised, how urgent? Not mega urgent, like the next hour - but we're looking for them. Last job was in Muscat, Oman. Asks for number, will call back.
8. Hunter not having much luck with obituaries, too much data in Arabic to sift. No CCTV for the gallery or the areas, all seized by Oman insurance.
9. Marius calls Andre Koompli in Constantinople. Trying to track down some artwork. Not heard of them, pretty enough boat I guess. Nothing on his radar. Ask Marius "how subtle to be". Subtle. What do you want? Questions both ways - Marius, military grade munitions. 50 cal, big boy toys and canon rounds.
10. Kai thinking about going to see Germaine to get more details - etiquette test. Doesn't want to disappoint - sends message, investigating, several routes, one route is... thinks about compartmentalisation.
11. Go back and look at news reports again. Shimazu - really might be an inside job. Tads - agrees. Or maybe something else in the storeroom.
12. Kai - what about radar information? Hunter, checks map - international airport 13km west, but a *very* hard target to breach. Kai - what about areas around the areas around the museum. Hunter sniggers
13. Team get the feeling that they need to get onsite to get stuff done.
14. Hunter search for illegal stuff in Oman - good rolls. Info from Wikipedia + 6th world twist, Metas are tolerated and employed by the government due to strength and practicality in industry. As well as petro chem, large agri corps present. Need visas / passports to be there legally.
15. Kai calls Praneeth, in, picks up, Ahh - my friend, long time no speak, how are you. All good etc. Explains coming to the area. Rising piracy in the area and mega-corps fighting, rising tensions. Sends details for Keith. Praneeth wants "Karl Kombat mage action figures for the kids" Got to be legit - the kids will spot a fake a mile off. Anything for him - he says no, not worth the risk.
16. Keith calls, loud and rude - you're a gobbler aint ya! 250Ny landing fee, or trades. Asks for deck chairs, bacon, bitter, Kai agrees...hangs up, then asks "what the hell was that"
17. Team go and get all the gear from Baku, while others work on a deck chair design. Leave at dusk, couple of hours down to Qatar, refuel, into Oman at Dawn.
18. Look at the map, and get ready to go.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 234 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
The team are on the way to Oman, via a new smuggler stop – which fills in a nice little spot for them and opens up most of the middle east for future operations – as long as they can put up with “Keith”, who hopefully combines the worst excesses of an east-london/essex wideboy ex-pat with a severe case of casual racism…
I did have a thought about how I was going to address this racism. Was it wise to be referring to “pakis” and “nips” and other derogatory terms in the story, even when it was clear this was coming from the mouth of a racist asshole? In the end I went with a more 3rd person narrative, describing the teams response to hearing those kinds of terms and leaving it to the reader to imagine the actual terms used – hopefully this is the best way to actually portray the racist content without referencing it directly.
They also met a new team, based off of a small merchantman that tours the gulf. They didn’t enquire too much about them (which is a shame) – but have basic introductions and contact details, so at least they can bump into them in the future. They do know that the boat has a *very* good EW suite though – but they missed out on the hollowed out well-deck concealed in the freighter and the small electric minisub armed with Piranha torpedoes that they use for landing and deliveries/collections!

On the way down to Oman they got a reminder from Aden about the device he’d ordered them to make – reminding them that they’re on the clock for this – more of which in a bit.
Finally, they arrived in Oman and found themselves a landing spot up in the hills, and got it concealed nicely, and the whole team headed down into Muscat. I’ve relocated the gallery from it’s actual R/L position (which is 20km east of Muskat city centre and not ideal in terms of plot delivery for what I have in mind) and let them get some local currency to use as bribes, as well as establish a little of the local etiquette.
Hopefully next week will be a bit of recon of the site (not hugely forthcoming) and the insurance offices, and planning a break-in. Once they get inside the office they can get the insurance files which will reveal a whole bunch of information – the total cost of the insurance loss (double digit millions, which is why it’s being treated so carefully) and some details on the scene found in the building the other team used as a base – including the ritual cutting carried out on the cleaner before she was killed. And then there’s a police report of another person suffering ritual cuttings, out to the west of the city, a small village in the back-desert. A bit of thinking from Hunter and Marius should reveal that it’s about an easy days’ journey for an off-road ground vehicle leaving the city and heading west, avoiding the main roads. And then there’s another, right on the border with the UAE – same style, but different cuts. Time to play connect the dots, and follow the trail of carnage!

Once the team have finished this mission for Germaine, they should be pulled straight into heading off to see Aden with the device (which is actually about due to arrive at the ranch), to deliver that to him – where he’ll give them an immediate job to go deal with some Turkish army units that are giving the PKK a really hard time. Unfortunately for the team, he’s not in an asking mood – more a telling. Assuming they do that, and return to him however, he’s had time to enchant the device and it will be rather forcibly implanted into Hunter – whether he likes it or not. Once he gets the benefit of his “campaign special item” though, I think he’ll be a lot more appreciative of it.
After that, it’s my intention to start throwing several missions at them quite rapidly – some stuff for the probe race (as we’re in the year of the comet), another mission for Ludmilla, some new missions from the contacts they’ve made including Cosmic (who’s a little annoyed with them that they didn’t do the follow up steal on the Admiral in Crimea) and some more – some of which will be absolutely impossible to do as they overlap in either time or space constraints. It’s going to be time for the team to choose who they favour as contacts and who they can afford to disappoint or distance themselves from. After that we have SURGE to deal with, and towards the end of the year the ring of fire is going to go mental as Lung and Rumyo fight over the stones they planted in the previous year, leading to Imperial Japan undergoing massive changes and the events in CalFree kicking off – which may affect the runs they have as a couple more dragons start to lean on them as we go straight into Survival of the Fittest around some more runs for the longer overall campaign.
That should keep us busy for a few more years…

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Monday 14/2/2061, Location: 40.02426, 48.95799, Time 18:00
2. Team have Bacon, Deckchair, Bitter - check weapons, and flowing robes for Muscat. Discussion in team about what weapons to take / carry. Aswon trying to work out what he can take concealed - throwing knives and extendable staffs.
3. Planning on getting into the office, based off the other Shadowrun team being able to do it a few months ago.
4. Ask Hunter if they can get him into a traffic cam, can he get the data - Hunter thinks it would help, but only for the feed on that camera.
5. Kai asks if gallery would have a hearth spirit - Tads, no, nobody living there, very unlikely. May have something else - but probably not. Aswon - but that will make it city spirit, city domain, get close and summon, ask it questions. Aswon - city spirit may know something about the incident, destroying "its" city.
6. Kai ask about buildings nearby - Shimazu, no - the police will have confiscated due to criminal impact.
7. Kai - am confused about the fire and people dying, why, it escalates things. Aswon - might be the team, or to cover things. Tads - it did say it got out of control, that might be where people died.
8. Kai - want to check the families, see how upset they are, if it's an inside job. Also - would fire mask the spells. Tads and Aswon - explain no.
9. 3 hours flight time, 7 on stealth.
10. Crossing from TCL to Iran (11,7), Just a tickle, no problem
11. Crossing from Gulf into Qatar (17,9) Get a firm ping, Marius drops, Tads puts up a cover flock.
12. Spot the tramp freighter, tramp freighter - assense, spot F4/5 hearth spirit, watchfulness. Marius pulls up and does a 20km loop to avoid leading them to the smuggler stop. Come in to spot IR lamp illuminating landing pad.
13. Coming in to land around 22:00. Call Frank so he comes out. Drop vehicle mask, leave concealment up.
14. Keith’s - Booby-doo-wap are loading on some Pearls and luxury fish for export. Keith comes round with stick and desert eagle. Waves hello "Awright Geezer" Introduce Kai and Shimazu, handshake, clammy and greasy. "you got my stuff then? Let's have a gander", Aswon gets stuff out. "Wot you got there, special paint and stuff?" Taps on bird. Mention freighter - ahh, that's boobydowap". Kai asks for clarification on where they are going - inside, rooms and stuff, civilised.
15. Spot other team loading boxes into handcart, respectful nods and salutes. Keith - you're not local. Come out here to make me fortune. Tests deckchair. Checks over other stuff. Offer truffles - thinks chocolate truffles. Calls for Charlene to take the stuff into the fridge - I'm watching telly! Checks team funds, then allows fuel bowser to be taken.
16. Get room assigned, bare, stone floor, shithole next door. No wards.
17. Kai explains they are heading to Oman/Muscat. How to deal with the police - explains bolshy, act like you own the place
18. Where can we land? Airport - but not legal. Right, up in the hills then - got bikes/cars. 10 klick walk - avoid the heat of the day. Avoid bacon grease / pictures of jesus. Kai - do you want stuff? Luxury Dates - if they're fresh
19. Dodge comes over to say hello. Just heading out, not staying - you're new, got a job in Oman. We ship stuff - us too. Explain they are shipping pearls, Kai says they do odd stuff. Mention Orlando. We spent money on her - mostly dealing around the gulf. Kai mentions local pirates - try not to look important, they should leave you alone. Swap business cards. Kai asks if they've gone through the Suez - bit of work, but not much. Mentions the mist on the freighter behind the Maersk. "Ahh, pirates with mojo, not that common". Dooby get harnessed up, head to the coast 1km
20. Depart about midnight, heading to Oman via UAE, get one hit but EDs let them escape.
21. Heraeus Metals’ of New York, Boston Metal Fabricators Inc. 12 weeks from 12/11/60
22. Message from "Boss" Why haven't you contacted us to get the device. Some discussion about the engineering. Kai responds "slipped our mind,
23. Ordered - just not arrived yet, due soon.
24. Hunter gets them a landing spot south of Falaj, arrive around 3am. Land in a wadi, raise the berms, deploy the cammo net.
25. Team get into modest gear, grab water, shuck armour, small toolkits and get ready to head into town. Kai adjusts to local colour/face shape.
26. Into Falaj, affluent area, moist air, large cars. No spirits, all spells down except increase reflexes
27. Down into town, long slope, light traffic. Light CCTV, almost no drones. Get into town, some police, no 2nd looks. Get to the museum. street blocked off, tape either side, unguarded but dirty - no street sweeping for days. Kai checks things out astrally. BGC 1, dry city - but nothing special here.
28. Kai - question - how about if we go invisible and just get in here? Tads - I think it's a bad idea.
29. Look around the block, find back entrances and alternate routes into the businesses in closed off areas, scope out some of the cctv - city stuff at end of roads, some on local businesses. Get an idea of what other businesses are in the area, maybe visit the museum to social engineer, work on the outer layers of business cctv.
30. Rehash the bribery culture - gifts, patronage. Go for breakfast - then go looking for cashpoint.
31. Hunter tries Arabic / etiquette, then Marius joins in as well. Much better result.
32. Supermarket - charge and refund, get 400 Omani Rial for 1k Nuyen, get breakfast
33. Start to ask about stuff to see in the area, mosques, shopping - all commercial. Mention fire, not too fussed

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 235 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
It’s larp season, and this weekend was another event, so a bit of a struggle to get the story out in time – got as much done as I could Thursday night and Friday morning, but didn’t manage to finish it off before loading the car and heading off – fortunately it was only about the last page that needed to be finished, so I cracked on with that as soon as I was back from the event.

Having finally gotten the team to Muskat, it was time to start scoping out the two locations for possible jobs – the first being the museum / gallery, and the 2nd being the insurance company. I’d fairly heavily hinted at the insurance company being the place with the information they needed – or at least I thought I had – but some of the team seemed *very* interested in checking out the gallery, talking to people, getting details from there etc. So, I threw in some ID scanners at the entry way, and gave Shimazu a roll on his security procedures and some other skills to reinforce the fact that the insurance company was the stronger lead, and that being recorded / remembered talking to people, especially when they’re all in the country illegally, was probably a really bad idea – especially in such a totalitarian regime.

Once the penny had dropped through, they were off to the central business district to find the insurance building and scope it out. With a bit of careful planning and working out what exclusive actions to carry out first, and how to share the information, they got the info they needed to plan the break-in, and got an idea of what they were up against. Hopefully next week they’ll do the job – which should be fairly simple given the skillset, and get the information from the off-line matrix host, allowing them to start putting clues together and following the trail.

One of the enemy team has a geas “cutting” – they have to draw blood every so often to offset a lost magic point. Being a “baddie”, they are quite happy to cut other people, so there’s been a whole chain of cuttings, amputations, beheadings etc since they arrived in the city, until the night of the job – enough to establish an M.O.

They also have a police report from a village outside Muscat, which once Marius and Hunter get a look at, they’ll both get an intelligence/navigation/vehicle check – and can see that this is about one days worth of off-road travel from the city. The enemy team decided to stay off the highways and go cross country, slowing them down massively, but making them almost impossible to find – if only their physical adept wasn’t leaving a trail of cut people behind them… *doh*

Once the players hopefully realise this, and they have a location to start from, they can then draw an arc from that place, and work out where the next settlement is that might be about a days travel and fly over there – advancing rapidly, and then do some local investigation – which should turn up the next body, and another clue from some of the locals about how the baddie team appeared / which way they went. The trail will lead them back to Iran, and hopefully the players will get a chance to catch up before the other team offload the artwork to their new buyer, and can get it back to Germaine – and leave the double-crossing team as some kind of grisly warning to others not to betray their fixer.

Either that, or they’ll be too slow and miss their chance, lose the painting and only get the team as the “consolation” prize, and lose some rep with Germaine. We’ll have to see…

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Tuesday 15/2/2061, Location: 23.59186, 58.403, Time 08:00
2. Starting at breakfast time at the cafe, dry and clear, may get hot later
3. Kai - we've got some info on the gallery, mind probe would be useful on people nearby. Tads very uncertain, high risk if detected.
4. Thinking about going to the museum - it has ID scanners though, would pick up no visas. Aswon - maybe check the staff car park?
5. Kai - lets go to the museum, scout it out. See what's going on.
6. Aswon - we could make out that we're representatives of an interested party, about the painting, wanting to talk to the insurance company / museum. Arrange a meet, get Kai to act as an art dealer. Maybe even pretend to represent the artist for a different painting or sculpture. Aswon - maybe even ask Germaine if she knows anyone.
7. Get to museum, armed security guard, ex cop, light pistol. Ask Hunter to talk to guard, get a manager re the break-in. Tads - maybe get Marius to do it, avoid metahuman bias. Kai - pretend to be a donor for the gallery. Hunter checks intel - no list of donors.
8. Pause nearby and discuss - Kai, do we go into the museum, ask questions about what went on. Aswon - say we're investigators, as that's essentially true. Represent a collector, some pieces were in your gallery, the fire has ruined their chance of getting a full collection, very angry. Want a contact with the investigator from the insurance. Kai - maybe mention our collector might help get the museum back in operation again - in exchange for a plaque or something like that. Aswon - just have to be careful we don't get ID checked. Unless we call our ID manufacturers and try to get that sorted out. Kai - maybe take the angle we're here to find the painting and get it back to the museum, so their collector can buy legitimately - very important that our employer has only legal paintings.
9. Shimazu - uncomfortable with getting recognised /tagged. People are dead, should be a police investigation, but the insurance company are doing it, unusual, already out of normal procedure.
10. Aswon - suggest calling, not face to face contact then - just phone the museum and ask about the contact with the insurance company. Tads - suggest we get Hunter to make a fake investigation company so they can check us out.
11. Kai - let's go check out the insurance company then, this sounds like we don't want to / feel comfortable getting into the museum. Why do we need the insurance company contact name anyway?
12. Aswon - get the insurance lead, break into his house and mind-probe him. Residential B&E instead of corporate, much easier, lower risk.
13. Aswon - let's go scope out the insurance company then.
14. Marius - can we control people. Mention of Kai Command, Tads influence, intimidate maybe. Find a person working there, control them, get them to do the data exfiltration, stop us having to get into there.
15. Get to Insurance company, spot the ward, start to investigate area, security is lighter than western cities, a little older - good environment for preservation. Looking for substations etc. Find every building has a plant room with external access.
16. Aswon - probably not a route into the building, very unlikely to be links to their internal IT. Why?
17. Kai - thinking about cutting the power when we go in, to drop security. Doors are sturdy, good locks, but otherwise light security.
18. Tads points out the hole in the middle - easier access?
19. Aswon - is it plascrete-7? Chemistry check - no success, turns down a re-roll. Unsure. Tads asks why - Aswon explains.
20. Shimazu security procedures, window sensors probably only on the bottom.
21. Check out the building, dark stripes - Aswon, I can get up there, run a line down get people in. Can get in on the "dark side" when the moon is up.
22. Kai - break in from the outside past the locks. Sneak in and get up through service elevators etc - difficult. Possibly a tunnel - like in Crimea. In through the windows. In through the roof.
23. Tads - offer one astral flyby, they obviously have some mages on call. Don't like the idea of tunnelling - probably concrete.
24. Kai - Hunter has to be in, for the decking, then Marius for security doors / alarms. Then security procedures - Shimazu. Tads best for outside cover / blatting. No reason for me to go in.
25. Aswon - Kai - you could cover the social engineering inside. But perhaps better for Kai/Tads to do outside distraction/cover escape.
26. Kai- Tads can you mend/fix - small stuff. Can you accident - break floodlights etc? Check - does the team have a glass cutter? Yes, Marius has one (small one) in his toolkit.
27. Fainting water, side of building - astral scouting on the roof, top left corner has more hvac than the rest, estimated R3 maglock. Kai ask Marius to check the temp on the building, looking for hot/cold spots. Spot where the data centre via thermo on Marius, Aswon zoom vision different refractive on the glass, top 1/4 of the top left square.
28. Tads - can we use spirits to jam the hvac? Aswon - better to break the maglock, it's easy.
29. Picture of building - corner office for director of IT. Comms array - probably tv receive only.
30. Check the day - not a holiday/special day/bank holiday etc.
31. Check building next to highway - gazebo for speed monitoring police. Buildings on either side look like multi-use commercial.
32. Get a taxi to an off-book hotel where they can pay cash. Marius good etiquette check, get to coffin hotel for orks/trolls, out by expressway
33. Almost no watchers, no travellers. Only active magic security is elementals on guard at mosques.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 236 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
A nice simple B&E job for the team this week. I’d plotted out the building, security and computer system, based on their stats and equipment – enough to be a bit of a challenge and make them think, but nothing too rough.
The building details:
• Oman insurance PTY - a 5 story modern concrete office, Roof has a R3 maglock, no AT.
• R5 electronic security with AT2, R4 wards (mosaic patterns)
• Offline host for Hunter to hack and get data
• Hunter - Computer 6, Hacking Pool 7, DF 4, Sleaze 3, MPCP 5, Validate 3
• Oman Insurance Host - Green Host R6, 2 dice detect, 4 dice attack hitting on 5s, 2d6 turns for reinforcements
• Log on Computer 6 vs 3s, need 3+ successes. System rolls 2 dice vs 4s to detect intrusion.
• Run validate (3) to get basic access (4) mini admin or (5) full admin, needing 3+ successes
• Run search (3) to download paydata.
This is not SR3 standard decking – we have some home-brew rules that simplify things a lot and make it much quicker to run through, and keeps the game flowing a lot faster than the core rules – which might be why that looks ‘wrong’ to any SR3 aficionados.

A random encounter roll led to the police car stopping as they were scoping the place out, but again they handled that with a reasonable story, a good etiquette roll, and a fair dose of suspicion – so they spotted the police car stalking with them and then acted in the best way to allay any doubts the two coppers had – so that worked out ok for them.

They managed to get in, and come up with a plan to get around the security which was fairly low risk – and a quick random roll meant the security guard *wasn’t* watching the monitor at the time it got covered up. So, in they went, and they ran into the first of the two minor issues for the night – Marius got the case off ok, but then got an awful roll on actually hacking the lock. Fortunately he did have some rerolls left, but he’s no down to 1 remaining!
Shimazu meanwhile was less lucky, when he rolled a bunch of 1s and 2s on his lockpicking, as he’s completely out – so it was a snapped lockpick for him! Not that the office was going to give them any more information than what they got from the computer system, not that they were to know that of course.

Armed with the paydata, they made good their escape, and got back to the tilt-wing ok and started to look through the mass of data, allowing me to then brief them on the “highlights”
I had worked out a timeline of what the enemy team had done, and had a sliding scale of how much / how many clues to reveal – Hunter did a pretty good job with his hacking, so they got the max results from that, and they should have an easy job of putting the clues together now I think.

The timeline:
• 1/2/61 Team make it to Muscat - homeless man beheaded, Grey nondescript delivery van seen on CCTV in nearby area
• 2/2/61 Taxi driver found with both hands cut off, bleeding out round the back of a taxi-rank. Claims to have been attacked by a demon clad in red fire - but slightly unhinged by the attack. Bakir El'Salem, 30 years old, lives locally with his mother.
• 3/2/61 Appartment cleaner taken captive - Saday Al'Nasrah, 48, Mother of 4, Widow (Anti-piracy Naval patrol), lives nearby and does cleaning to supplement Navy Pension, ward of her husbands brother who lives in Al'Ain. He has had to come to the city to look after the children, he knows about the death, the kids don't.
• 4/2/61 Appartment cleaner beheaded, corpse found amidst mass of bleach sprayed all over the room, destroying most evidence. Signs that at least 5 people had been here, Haram food supplies, pornography, alcohol and drugs use evident
• 5/2/61 Break in and fire, forensic investigation revealed the gallery security company guard was found in a dumpster, with his arms and legs sliced open.
• 6/2/61 Nahdah - farmer sliced open from shoulder to hip. Reports of a Brown UPS truck in village
• 7/2/61 Makaz'ash - village shopkeeper struck from behind and back sliced open. Yellow "Water aid" truck overnight
• 8/2/61 Arada - small child beheaded and left in a wadi. Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter
• 9/2/61 Al Batha - housewife sliced open in vegetable garden (Border between UAE and SA). Red and blue Abu Dhabi Import/Export Co
• 10/2/61 Hawiyah - Goat herder set upon and left leg sliced open
• 11/2/61 Al Hinah - Engineer digging new village well, left arm amputated at the elbow
• 12/2/61 Al Warfah - Local Imam disembowled (border crossed into Kuwait from SA) Black+green Kuwait Oil tanker
• 13/2/61 Abdhali - Teenage boy in critical condition after right leg sliced open in curving pattern (Near border to Iran) Black+green Kuwait Oil tanker
• 14/2/61 Nobquan - Goat herder beheaded, intricate carvings into back. White truck, doctors without borders noticed by farmers.
• 15/2/61 Afus - two baby siblings bled out after someone removed their skin from 90% of their chest area. Large red truck, Qom Couriers.
The enemy team are slowly meandering back to Iran, and heading back to Tehran to arrange to dispose of the painting, taking their time and waiting out the security noose, avoiding the major highways. One of the team is a phys-ad who lost a magic point and took a geas “cutting” – and then being an amoral slitch, has realised that *someone* needs to be cut, but not necessarily them… so some poor pedestrians are being savaged along the way.

The team have now firmly got a bee in their bonnet about the enemy team though, and it was all very sober at the end of the session, with some determination to hunting them down and making them pay. It’s going to be interesting to see if they manage to catch up with them before the other team make it back to Tehran and disappear into the shadows!

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Tuesday 15/2/2061, Location: 23.58348, 58.44767, Time 22:00
2. Cool, clear, team armour up a little (form fit for those who have it), then start to walk in.
3. Kai checks on what they need to do in terms of spells - Tads says they need concealment, find a quiet corner, Tads discovers spirits are more resistant to being called. Mana smoothing, takes a while. No police or drone activity, slum area.
4. 4km walk into the centre, Aswon walking separate parallel route left, Hunter on the right, both make good stealth checks. Shimazu does the same from the rear. Get through the CBD, restaurants and cafes, some nightlife, fairly quiet.
5. Look at maps, plan exfiltrate, possible routes and taxi journey. Tads says she can alter memory on the taxi driver if needed.
6. Get to building, it's somewhat well lit, uplighters and street lighting, moonlight is strong so area is fairly light, but with lots of harsh shadows. Hunter vs Aswon, gecko crawl might set off the ward, Hunter uses claws. Shimazu and Aswon boost him so claw marks are higher.
7. Hunter scampers up building with excellent climbing roll + claws, lowers rope.
8. Random rolls - 1, 1 again...doh. Hunter surprise check. Pulls rope up as rest of team is illuminated by police car, from the street. Marius heads over towards the police with a smile. Asks for directions to McRonalds. Aswon blocks LOS to Tads. Marius etiquette check, does ok - just, gets directions and told he shouldn't be there. Pulls out local currency to offer his thanks - offers them 200Ny worth. Big note, elbow to the ribs, snatch out of his hand. Rest of team head in directions given. Tads asks Hunter to survey from on high, do they stay in the area, go on patrol. Hunter paranoid, checks for sensors. No signs of sensors / patrols, all quiet.
9. Hunter spots the cops go around the block then wait with the lights off, watching the team head to McRonalds, before turning around and heading off. Most of team head in to get a meal/drink. Team go around the block and head back, get there about midnight. Drop the rope. Climb 4 tests - Aswon slow (1), Shimazu (2), Marius (1). Tads and Kai move over to trees to lurk in the shadow, check around them - quiet and dark, maybe cleaners or security guards.
10. Roof access door - swipe card and 10 digit keypad. Marius asks - scramble or super quiet. go SQ. Marius tools out and hacks the lock. Sand in the screws, but quick once the case is off. No contact or camera cover. Ward cuts through the door. Aswon masks tattoos, Shimazu turns off, all in. Marius and Hunter swap to ultrasound and start scoping. Spot camera in the corner, looking their way. Spot the very faint IR light on the camera, illuminating the corridor. No more astral wards/alarms - Aswon. Marius zooms in and checks around for blind spots. Hunter engineering check. Marius checks the roof - there is a void. No camera at other end. Hack through fire-foam, Aswon checks - no access to server room. Blocks camera, 3,2,1 run up to corner. Marius examines the camera, streaming a live feed, somewhat old tech, basic. SUT tests from Aswon/hunter - slew the camera around to increase blind spot size. Fire / security door, gas sealed but not under/over pressure. Int check - not great from Marius, 1 success. Aswon and Shimazu go hunting with lockpicking. Marius recognises the lock, gets the stats. Case off - 3 successes, slow, but no danger. Touches circuit - starts to alarm, RR, ok, 2 mins on each. Clean server room, well lit, cool air. Get in before temp rises too much. Close the door - there is a manual release.
11. Hunter finds a jackpoint, starts to log in - logs on ok, no spot - validate full admin - 5 success. Squelch a sand devil watchdog. Search - 3 successes, gets all the data. Can log off gracefully.
12. Aswon and Shimazu checking - inner ring juniors multiple occupancy, outer is senior partners with PAs in outer offices. Looking for files that matches, lead investigator "Al Sharif" - Hunter can download the whole file, lots of MPs. Aswon and Shimazu find the Al Sharif office in the SW corner of the building - Shimazu tries to lockpick, 2+1, fails, snaps a lockpick. Oh... Aswon removes with a rifle B/R roll of 29...
13. Hunter checks - security system is completely separate to computers. Log out, team starts to exfiltrate. Hunter wants the camera put back, paranoid after last break in, team reverse. Clean the stairwell, back up into the roof, replacing all locks on the way back. Outside team have not seen the police patrol come back. Check for trouble, then get down the building. Hunter last one down with double rope and a drop down the last floor.
14. Back about 03:30 to tilt-wing, no trouble on the way. Start analysing the data:
15. 5/2/61 - Night of the fire. Gallery security company guard was found in a dumpster, with his arms and legs sliced open in a series of long, shallow cuts. Cause of death was a silenced pistol to the back of the head, but this was done after the cuts were inflicted. Entry to the gallery was made via the roof access door - the mag-lock was sequenced and the alarm was bypassed with jumper cables.
16. Internal sensors and alarms were disabled physically after the door into the security office was forced - remains of the door lock were found splintered, and from the burn damage it was clearly done before the fire took hold.
17. The building fire suppression system was deliberately sabotaged, and then fire-blocks were removed on the gallery floor and in the HVAC area, to deliberately let the fire spread, and in fact promote the fire effects.
18. 6/2/61 - After the fire was dealt with, residents complained about an odd smell in an apartment at the top of the building adjacent to the museum. Concerned over possible fire damage / effects, the local fire service investigated, then called in the police. Apartment found littered with fast food / junk food, and a number of bottles of foreign alcohol found empty. A body was found, beheaded by a blade exceeding 30cm, based on forensic evidence (cutting stroke and angle indicate that the blow was administered from above, behind and with high force. Body identified as Saday Al'Nasrah, 48, Mother of 4, Widow (Anti-piracy Naval patrol), lives nearby and does cleaning to supplement Navy Pension, ward of her husbands brother who lives in Al'Ain. He has had to come to the city to look after the children, he knows about the death, the kids don't.
19. Corpse found amidst mass of bleach sprayed all over the room, destroying most evidence. Signs that at least 5 people had been here, Haram food supplies, pornography, alcohol and drugs use evident
20. Police reports - limited information on a number of incidents which may be linked / relevant
21. 1/2/61 Homeless / vagrant individual, males, lated 50s, found beheaded in the western end of the city - now tagged as the nature of the beheading matches that of Saday Al'Nasrah. Examining local CCTV showed a Grey delivery truck that can't be positively IDd.
22. 2/2/61 Taxi driver found with both hands cut off, bleeding out round the back of a taxi-rank. Claims to have been attacked by a demon clad in red fire - but slightly unhinged by the attack. Bakir El'Salem, 30 years old, lives locally with his mother. Was mugged, and held against a wall with hands raised over his head, when he was struck from above and behind, and both hands severed in a single blow.
23. Yesterday, a new report put in - 6/2/61 Nahdah - farmer sliced open from shoulder to hip. Reports of a Brown UPS truck in village
24. 7/2/61 Makaz'ash - village shopkeeper struck from behind and back sliced open. Yellow "Water aid" truck parked in the village overnight, on the border with the UAE.
25. Speculative enquiry to the UAE police, got a lead
26. 8/2/61 Arada - small child beheaded and left in a wadi. Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter

[Kren Cooper]

Two players down this week unfortunately, so no game on Tuesday 16th - we should be back again on the 23rd - though I have *no* idea when the writeup for that will get done, as the following weekend I'm away at our biggest LRP event of the year doing more photography, from the friday through to the monday - and I normally do the writeups on the saturday. So, normal service is very unlikely to be resumed for another week after that. Not sure if I can get enough charge in the laptop to make writing in the field a feasible thing or not....will have to see.

In the meantime though, for your possible amusement - have a thumbnail overview of an emergency short-notice game I ran last night instead!

One person down for our D&D game, so emergency Shadowrun time. The team consists of "Icemane" the Wolf Shapeshifter (now fortunately with Masking), Dr Forman, ex-Yamatetsu cybersurgeon, on the run after a botched extraction, and T-Wiz, the greatest living cyber-mage (ever). Tasked by a Japenese Johnson, to go extract a Japanese researcher at a very limited opportunity visit to a shop, taking the researcher outside the corporate HQ and with minimal security for some reason.

So, into Downtown they go, paranoid as all hell about the omnipresent security, only two blocks over from the Renraku arcology - even more paranoid because they can see tanks and a company of troops manning the cordon at the bottom of the road they're staking out... and they start to investigate the location, finding out that it's some manufactured seedy back alley, looking for all the world like a drug-den smack in the middle of the AAA neighbourhood.

Eventually they get into the shop and discover it's worse - it's Seattle's best kept secret, a massive BDSM warehouse. The target is coming to get his latest batch of toys, and the team have to get him in a very narrow timeframe - and take him uninjured.

They manage to defeat the door lock into the staff area when one of the team "accidently" knocks over a massive rack of silicon cocks and other toys, giving just enough time for the Dr to hack the locks and take out the security system, just before the target turns up. Combat kicks off, and they discover the single bodyguard is a physical-adept with a weapon foci Katana, and it all gets a bit bloody - sword swipes open up one of the team members, while point blank lightning bolts set fire to the bodyguard and melt his face off, and the Wolf shifter has to chase down the target who does a legger while they're distracted, and then a frantic dash for safety before Lone Star or worse - the Army turns up to investigate the noise...

Gotta love a bit of Pink Mohawk!

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 237 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Well – that didn’t go as planned. Not at all.

What I had in mind was the first few news reports to establish a series of locations and crimes, that the team could see were linked in a reasonably consistent pattern. Maybe they’d go to each one to check out the details and get more info – maybe they’d just jump to the last one on the list, or maybe they’d just plot the ranges and move on to one of the next potential spots.

I use a great little tool found at https://www.mapdevelopers.com/draw-circle-tool.php - this lets you plot a circular range from an origin point on the world map. I use this to generate my fuel range map, and plan out where I need to put future smuggler stops to let the team hop around, and it gives a great visual indication of where they can reach. The details you enter are added to the URL, including code for range, origin, colour, borders etc – so they make pretty big links – here’s the fuel map from session 217, after they got some new smuggler stops “unlocked”:
MAP Link

Ugh – pretty ugly URL – but very very useful. Anyway, before the session, I’d marked out the “known” crimes, putting in a bunch of red circles showing the minimum distance travelled, and then some purple circles once the range went up a bit, giving a “donut” that their next stop was *probably* in. What I was hoping was that the team would realise there was a trail of breadcrumbs, and that they would follow along – slowly gathering more data, especially from some of the later crimes where people had been maimed rather than killed, or had not died yet (and probably wouldn’t, if Tads had anything to do with it!) With the superior speed of the tilt-wing, even accounting for the faffing about on the ground and the RP elements, they’d slowly catch up with the other team, closing in on them and then with a bit of careful GM shenanigans, I could have the player team catch up with them just as they’re handing over the painting to the buyer, giving the team a choice as to who to follow / deal with.

Instead they seemed to just flail around somewhat aimlessly. I dropped some hints, had them make some tests on small unit tactics, navigation, psychology, and several other skills to try and give them the idea that there was a trail they could follow – but either they just *really* didn’t get it, or they’re trolling me super hard…

So, the session ended up a bit shorter than usual, as they tried to work out what they were doing, and I tried not to give the game away entirely.

At least that let me finish the writeup before I go away for the weekend to my last big LARP event of the year, without worrying about bashing out several thousand words on Monday when I’m exhausted!

The other item of major note was the sudden introduction of “Blood Magic” – which they’re going to hate me for if they ever realise. You see, Hunter’s player wasn’t here, so I was rolling for him. He did a search on the “Jewel of Muscat” again, and then I rolled for him to translate the text from Arabic to English. Arabic is at 4, so Arabic R/W is at 2… and I rolled…. 2 X 1s. A botchy Mr Botcherson. Oh dear. And because I was rolling, I don’t think the players realised it was a botch (or what the test was for) so they took the bad translation as gospel, and ran with it. They ran SO FAR and SO HARD.

Well, if the players are trolling me, then it’s fair turnabout. And if they’re not – well, sometimes I have a twisted sense of humour. So sue me... 😊


And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
Wednesday 16/2/2061, Location: 23.53413, 58.40645, Time 04:30
• Kai - message to Pranath, call me when you're up please?
• Tads suggests calling Mossad due to weird stuff, Marius does, message re gruesome killings.
• Kai - get Hunter to check Museum website re blood linked items. Average search, botch translate - Jewel of Muscat also known as "the blood ship" used to transfer slaves from invasions to new "homes"
• Team start getting worried about blood spirits, Aswon thinks they need a big warded box, possibly possessed one of the other team forcing them to be sociopaths.
• Marius - need to get on the trail, they're changing jurisdictions
• Check survival for Tads and Aswon. Moving from watering hole to watering hole.
• Tads - they either didn't come in via ground, or weren't killing probably. Maybe get in touch with Keith to see if people turn up.
• Working out ranges and possible routes, max fuel range,
• Kai - want to get at least 1 more murder site surveyed. Shimazu police procedures - remote villages might not have reported in incidents, might not have police. Talk about what the reports are again - confirm that they are either vehicle mask or using PVPs, or a combo of both.
• Marius int check - rate of advance, water+attack, requires a village of some kind to be a likely target.
• Tads - if we go to a village, I can do invisibility and people can run around and check astral, look for signs of attack. Maybe I can go astral and check out the possible targets. Tads goes astral to search. Team discuss sensors and visibility and flux. Tads finds recent burial site in Al Batha, aura of grieving, relatively fresh. Plot circle from there. Get Hunter on a search in Qatar for murders. Kai sends message to Anahita the art dealer in Iran, about the museum.
• Tads - Germaine is not that fussed about the picture (maybe the frame?) but not comfortable about letting it get sold on if it's blood magic based. Marius - it might be empty now if something has escaped from it.
• Tads asking about fuel - range or capacity, maybe they're taking it from the people they murder.
• Kai asks if Tads can scout that roads - effectively not due to movement speeds and searching.
• Kai calls Keith to arrange refuelling " fuck off, it's 5 in the morning", Tads going astral scouting in the zone.
• At 6am, Pranath calls Kai back, Kai says a museum got trashed. What kind of stuff - statues? Paintings. Pretty small - or was it a massive one? No, can send you some info. Pranath doesn't know anything, but will keep ears open.
• Kai planning on sending through details on 6 paintings from the museum, including the target, at around lunchtime.
• Tads - lucks out and find fresh grave in Hawiyah with aura of grief.
• Kai asks about blood mages and killing and stuff - might be says Aswon, very individual
• Aswon - feels like hey are under the influence of *something* - haunting, possession, nomad, trickster spirit - something like that.
• RV at Keiths, wait for dawn and refuel. 800km used = 6000Ny.
• Kai - maybe go to Al Batha and check traffic cams and refuelling stops. Both Marius and Shimazu think this would be atypical.
• Kai - is it worth trying to get ahead - Marius, no, too many choices, too big a search area.
• Aswon - killing might go with the painting, if the team hand it over to the buyer - and our job is to find and punish the team.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 238 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
This week had me stumped, and questioning my abilities as a GM. I really can’t explain it. Between them the team have over a hundred years of TTRPG experience – but they seemed to be stumped by the events here, and the breadcrumbs laid out. Much like the end of last week, they seemed to flail around for a while, wondering where the bad guys could be going, and what their ultimate goal might be, and bemoaning the lack of matrix or magical answers.

After putting up with this for a bit, I stopped the game and told them:
“Look, it’s a breadcrumb quest. Nothing fancy. Try going to one of the sites you know about and look for physical clues – you might learn something useful, ok?”

I was genuinely questioning myself, wondering if I’d had a stroke and not noticed, or had quietly slipped into Klingon while describing the scene – as otherwise I *really* couldn’t fathom why they’d not worked out what they needed to do here. Had I genuinely confused them with some really bizarre narration or description of something?

*scratches head*

Not to this extent, but this is a common issue with setting puzzles or problems in a game – what’s obvious to you as the GM might not be to the players, and might appear to be really obscure or super difficult to solve. In this case though, after taking a good step back, I couldn’t see it.

The clues they had:
1/2/61 Team make it to Muscat - homeless man beheaded, Grey nondescript delivery van seen on CCTV in nearby area
2/2/61 Taxi driver found with both hands cut off, bleeding out round the back of a taxi-rank. Claims to have been attacked by a demon clad in red fire - but slightly unhinged by the attack. Bakir El'Salem, 30 years old, lives locally with his mother.
3/2/61 Appartment cleaner taken captive - Saday Al'Nasrah, 48, Mother of 4, Widow (Anti-piracy Naval patrol), lives nearby and does cleaning to supplement Navy Pension, ward of her husbands brother who lives in Al'Ain. He has had to come to the city to look after the children, he knows about the death, the kids don't.
4/2/61 Appartment cleaner beheaded, corpse found amidst mass of bleach sprayed all over the room, destroying most evidence. Signs that at least 5 people had been here, Haram food supplies, pornography, alcohol and drugs use evident
5/2/61 Break in and fire, forensic investigation revealed the gallery security company guard was found in a dumpster, with his arms and legs sliced open.
6/2/61 Nahdah - farmer sliced open from shoulder to hip. Reports of a Brown UPS truck in village
7/2/61 Makaz'ash - village shopkeeper struck from behind and back sliced open. Yellow "Water aid" truck overnight
8/2/61 Arada - small child beheaded and left in a wadi. Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter

I’d also pulled up a map, showing each of those location, with circles on them showing the minimum and maximum range the enemy were moving each day, creating a “donut of probable travel” – and when you looked at the map it vastly cut down on the number of possible locations they had to go to and check out, and there was a lot less travel involved.

As we got towards the end of the evening though, they’d made it to Al-Batha and found some info on the killing there, then checked the petrol station and got a ‘possible’ on Dice and the vehicle, then drawn a reasonable inference that they’d travel on road to get past the major highways to avoid suspicion, and then head back off-road when it was clear.

That then firmed up the possible locations to travel to next, and headed over, again getting confirmation of a vehicle and a stabbing to keep them on the right path. I actually changed the colour of the vehicle, and had them re-use the brown UPS truck to add further veracity to it being the right targets – and I’m going to quietly re-write the list of future sightings to actually put in a repeating pattern that should be easy to spot, to help keep the team on the straight and narrow.

Hopefully that’ll keep them chasing after the enemy team as they turn north, and they can make up some time, and get close to catching them! Either that, or I’ll lose my sanity…



And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Wednesday 16/2/2061, Location: 23.53413, 58.40645, Time 07:30
2. Breakfast at Keiths, looking at maps. Team still very confused, thinking target might be Riyadh.
3. Tads, astral scout - Sa'ad, nothing. Sihmah - almost misses it, nothing. Continues arc, finding nothing in the next 2 hours. 09:30
4. Team floundering - Aswon thinking about trying to get sat footage downloaded to analyse.
5. Eventually rule out near Riyadh - to busy / large.
6. Team agree to go back to Al-Batha, to talk to locals.
7. Get to Al-Batha, land in a wadi, around 10am, 30min walk to town. Get to graveyard, get family name of murdered woman. Get Marius to do translation from Kai, to get bonus from body-language / tone of voice.
8. Marius excellent translation, Kai etiquette test good.
9. Details of strike, left shoulder to right hip, noise in garden, details of truck, almost where the team landed.
10. Kai agrees this matches the MO for the team. Edge of town, isolated, low risk.
11. Head to service station to check - ideal fuel place due to busy
12. Tads+Aswon, Find a tiny part of PVP knocked off on the rocks, save for hunter.
13. Look at truck stop, Hunter get CCTV. Finds vehicle from 7 days ago, very pixellated, looks like Dice - though could be anyone.
14. Team head to Hawiyah, team do translation and etiquette. Gas plants are owned by SK.
15. Talk to goat herder, red-demon, sliced from left hip to right ankle, bled out over the next day. Brown UPS truck, left heading north.
16. Marius - firmly believes they are heading to the crescent north. Aswon asks about personel belongings - Shepherd shifty, has taken them. Ask him for them to do psychometry.
17. Shimazu psychometry 5+ successes, good imagery.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 239 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
A delayed update this week as I’ve been on holiday – enjoying the country life in the depths of Ireland – where my phone would ping me every few minutes to tell me it had no signal at all! So, connectivity was non-existent, rather than poor, which delayed everything considerably, and also meant no game for a week.

But, with that out of the way, the team seem to have hit their stride and worked out what they need to do to follow up on things, and actually made some good progress. They worked out their cover story and developed that, had some decent etiquette, charisma and translation rolls, and generally made good calls as they were talking to each of the witnesses / victims etc. They were also mindful of the culture and surroundings, making sure that they didn’t do any obvious magic, kept their lone female out of what they assumed was a male only section of the mosque, and Hunter spent a good while developing a model to work out where they were going to go next (and hiding his meta-human visage from the locals).

As they’d struggled previously, I trimmed down the number of disguises the truck had, and started to give them repeats as a confirmation, and to allow them to feel they were making progress and actually able to predict what was going on, which was a good boost to their confidence – it didn’t really change the plot at all, and it’s easy enough to change the backstory to fit, after all. In fact, something like this is actually easy to turn into a feature – if they manage to capture the enemy vehicle intact, I can make a notable find of the limited memory or processor in the PVP system to make it distinctive and memorable.

They’re now found incidents that were taking place 4 days ago, so another day of flying should see them catching up “just in time” for the other team to have disposed of the painting at a stop, and give them a choice – do they follow the painting and try to recover it, or do they go after the team and make an example of them for Germaine, and run the risk of tangling with a team of nutters.
In this case, I think because the other team have no idea that they’re coming, it will be a fairly one-sided affair unless the team screw up by the numbers – they’ll find somewhere to do an ambush and rip them a new one. The enemy mage is likely going to be neutralised by Tads and her shielding, and as long as they can get through the armoured hull of the enemy vehicle, it’ll be all over very quickly. It’s only if they botch the assault in some way and the enemy team get their minigun spun up that we’re likely to get some issues – in which case Marius is going to regret not having any re-rolls left as he tries to dodge some 15-round fully auto bursts!

I’m looking forward to the reaction when they bump into the enemy team, and what they make of them – Jez/Aswon actually hit the nail almost dead centre when he guessed at the phys-ad having a geas (and I must remember to give him a karma for it) – they actually have a ‘sacrifice’ style geas where they must cut flesh every day – and then of course being amoral pricks, gamed the geas by cutting – just not themselves. With the entire team being grade-A assholes, they all signed on for a bit of gratuitous cruelty, and now it’s going to come back to bite them in the ass…

As I was writing up the narrative, I managed to get some wifi connection and updated my map, and only then realised that the final stop for the night was actually *way* too large for the enemy team to have stopped at. Originally it was going to be one of the smaller ones anyway, but I’d shifted it to be the 2nd possible stop, just to cut down on the team having to do too many investigations – but there’s no way the narrative works with a major town/city… so I’ll ‘update’ them at the start of the next game session – chances are after 2 weeks, most of them will have forgotten the exact details anyway, and will just go with the story as written!

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Wednesday 16/2/2061, Location: 24.78663, 49.38564, Time 13:00
2. Shimazu collapses, two sympathetic wounds opening up down the back of his legs, a dry-fever of 40 degrees and everything aches from his "old age". A light wound to physically deal with, and a moderate stun to recover from, and he's back in action.
3. Team notice the blood out the trousers, go to help him up to remove trousers - pick up on temperature. Aswon wonders if it's shock - magic background roll - but bad results - possibly weird strain of fab. Assenses - picks up 2nd aura of old man, co-located with Shimazus. He relays this to Tads.
4. Marius - is he a zombie now or something? Cocks gun... Hunter backs off. Tads thinks - Spirit of old man, should fade soon, no power source. Tads explains "this is normal", will lay the spirit the rest soon, it's already fading. Ask Shimazu his thoughts - he says don't try to turn the aura into a spirit.
5. Kai - tell us a story Shimazu, as we're getting twitchy here, and want to know what's going on.
6. Then Shimazu can narrate his experiences to the team - English test for what was said "I'll cut you motherfrakker!"
7. Tads suggests going back to previous sites to see if there is a clue. Aswon - not sure, we learnt something new here, not sure if we would going back.
8. Kai - what about the frakking plant? Aswon - it's an SK facility, not sure if we want to go in there.
9. Look at map, get crescent of villages, Hunter does maths / modelling test to try and predict - gets a best guess on 4 in the middle. Kai - just go for the middle one - spidy sense.
10. Get details of the engineer, at the mayors hours - go there, talk to the mayor - he's in a shirt and trousers. Wonders why he wasn't told the team were coming - pulls out ancient mobile phone. Engineer arm wrapped in blood stained hessian, very wet, very painful. "Who are you" Marius gives the standard speech again. Explains overnight attack, kicked in the back, off balance, flail, cut, they laughed. Flash of red and yellow and orange. Aswon - did it illuminate or light up. No - more like advert clothing, illuminated fibres. Tads gets into position to try and prepare for mind-probe on the engineer.
11. Kai and Shimazu biotech - his wound was stabilised, not really treated. Tads suggest taking him back to the tilt-wing. They fix the arm up ready for a cyber-replacement, then magic healing. While he's unconscious - mind probe, gets some info, female laugh, tusky - ork or troll. Also gets his personal details, to potentially offer him cyberlimb. Gets the info that he subconsciously heard dogs fighting over the limb. Ask the mayor about trucks - get Yellow Water aid, seen leaving on a heading of 350. Hunter navigation check - bet on Al Wafrah
12. 14:30 - heading to Al Wafrah - bigger, but massive patch of nothing desert in the interior.
13. Local directs them to the mosque, Marius won't go in. Explains the Imam is dead, called the next Mosque, they called the police, waiting for people, unable to lay him to rest without an Imam.
14. Marius - we're not the police, international investigators. Crossing multinational borders. Tads has to wait outside, Aswon stays out too - Hunter is at the tilt wing.
15. Respectfully uncover the body, examine the wound - Shimazu edged check - competent hit, high, overhead strikes, strong hit
16. Marius - when we find this team, I'm all for just obliterating them. Aswon - you don't think this is a phys-ad with a geas do you? Some kind of blood-letting compulsion? Tads - ask your spear? Aswon - what you do mean? Oi! Tads - maybe another ancient weapon, with a darker edge. Get details of Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter. Tads -Coming up on possible direction changes, based on geography. Kai- they don't seem to be alarmed / think they're being tracked.
17. 16:00 - Hunter identifies 4 most likely - Ar Rumaylah, Ar Rafaa'iya, Kor Al Zubair or Chavibdeh - all over the border. Some discussion about crossing the borders, Kai - probably land is softer, water is harder, easier to the west - he thinks.
18. Run the border - not a sniff from the border guards, heading for Chavibdeh
19. Kai - what's over that way - the stands, or India if they bend course enough - though odd not to have taken the water. Though odd to keep killing - maybe harder to get away with on water. Marius - they never hide the bodies? Odd. Tads - not doing it to kill though - strange, not all have been deadly. Aswon - rest of team are endorsing this - they're not stopping this from happening. Shimazu gets sight of hunter lit by red combat light, half draws - flashback to the shepherd being attacked.
20. Tads - maybe it's the last thing they're doing before moving on - they're doing the run around. Hunter - doesn't fit pattern for the woman in Muscat - she was in the apartment.
21. Land in Chavibdeh, talk to people. spend 30 mins, no sighting, no alarms.
22. 17:00 - heading to Khor Al Zubair - just landing.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 240 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
And we’re finally close to a resolution – after deciding not to engage with the local police at all, they took a bit of a risk and stopped following the trail and (correctly) guessed that the enemy team are heading to Tehran. Leaping ahead they made up ground, and closed in on the city, trying to get a lead on where the enemy was and doing some recon with their drone.

Aswon was prodding Kai for most of the session to call his contact in Tehran, and for some (unknown) reason he didn’t want to until quite late on – so they were delayed in getting the information about the art dealer being in town – which would have been a good confirmation for them if they’d had it earlier.

But, with the news that the dealer was in town, when Marius spotted an armoured limo heading for a derelict building, that definitely triggered his spider-sense, and the team got interested – and then when they saw the target vehicle closing in, it was everyone at action stations!

We have no game next week – Marius is looking at schools for his kid, and with the nature of the upcoming fight, it’s not one I want to do with a player missing. That at least gives me a little more time to get a nice map together for the forthcoming battle, and refine the stats a little.

The players at the moment seem to be going for a full assault, taking on the enemy team AND the art dealer – AND (though they don’t know it yet) the gang that operates out of the hospital. That’s going to be tough proposition for them!

So – here’s a summary of where the team are at Karma re-roll wise:
Aswon 6/12, Hunter 8/11, Kai 3/11, Marius 1/12, Shimazu 0/12, Tads 8/12.

Shimazu and Marius need to be *careful* with what they do, especially Shimazu as he’s the melee focussed one that will certainly be in range of return attacks! They are all unwounded, not fatigued and have no conditions affecting them at the moment, so they’re all “fresh” for the fight. The bird is fuelled up, they have AV loaded in the door machine guns and they’ve got fairly good firepower – Aswon has a 50cal sniper and his hunting rifle, Hunter has a Panther canon and a good assault rifle, Shimazu has a R4 weapon focus sword that he’s attuned to (and he normally uses his reach to lower his target number to 2’s, so he’s pretty slick with it), Marius has several drones armed with ARs or machine guns, and Tads has a pretty hefty stunball and a flock of spirits – but will also be keeping the team almost magic immune with her 7 points of shielding.

However, against them are “Team Unsubtle” – the assholes they met the last time in Tehran (and I’m really looking forward to seeing the reaction when they discover this) made up of:
Modulo – Human street sam with 4d6+10 initiative, light security armour, dikoted spurs and an SMG packed full of APDS ammo.
Mono – Ork phys ad with ambidex Ares Monoswords (and a geas for “cutting” that is the cause of the bodies on the back trail), 4d6+8 init, very mobile with great leap and doing 12M with each sword swing.
Door – troll street sam with 3d6+8 init, laser combat axe in melee doing 15S damage and an APC door as a ‘personal shield’ with built in Burst Fire shotgun (based off an Enfield AS-7 auto shotgun). He’s packing heavy security armour and has a hefty body, so will need some directed fire to take down.
Gorgon – dwarf hermetic mage, with a focus on fire spells and a fire-spell foci. I actually expect him to be almost incidental for direct damage due to Tads – but he’s no doubt going to set the entire map on fire while he tries!
Dice – human rigger, in his APC armed with minigun (10S base damage, 15 round full auto bursts…) – so that may be a significant danger to the tilt-wing if he gets eyes on, especially if he starts throwing his control pool into his shooting, while he’s jacked in (VCR3) Their APC has 12 points of vehicle armour, so it’s also pretty tough to crack, and has Body 7 – so taking that out is going to be non-trivial.

I didn’t expect them to try and hit the meet (and they may change their minds when they’ve had a chance to think about it!) – so I haven’t stated up the art dealer and his bodyguards yet – or the gang in the hospital, so they’re on my to-do list. Potentially with the right spells or tactics, they could turn one side against the other for some *truly* chaotic battle shenanigans, but we’ll have to see!

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Wednesday 16/2/2061, Location: 30.21104, 47.76738, Time 17:00
2. Aswon, take a gamble hop north, Kai agrees, land at Ar Rafaiya. Marius translation 1 pass and 3 botches, Kai two successes,
3. Parents and younger brother, sweet smell of decay - suspicious and want to see ID. Aswon suggests calling the Mosque back at the previous stop. S-shaped curve, single blade, Shimazu confirms the blade attack. Aswon - judging by the smell, he's not long for this world unless we do something - these people might not let us take him though.
4. Aswon - what if we "argue" that we should be chasing the people and you (Kai) insist that we should stay and look after the son.
5. Hunter spots police car moving in from the east. Calls in the sighting. Kai blessings of Allah and gets the team out - Aswon, Marius ask about the vehicle. Confirm vehicle heading towards Basrah. Get back to the tilt-wing without being spotted by the police.
6. Aswon - are they heading to Tehran? Kai - can you call your friend.
7. Check out the map, look at the ridge lines, work out route - low passes.
8. Kai - leap of faith - just fly up to Tehran and camp out there?
9. Aswon - the thing for Aden - worth getting, if we're going near Aden - otherwise he's gonna be pissed
10. Tads - go there and send spirits out looking for vehicle? Aswon - nah, haunted as fuck. Will lose the spirits.
11. Aswon - call your friend and see if there's a market, would increase the chances of them going there if there is one on.
12. Kai - assuming they're going to Tehran, can we predict where they'll be, for an approach.
13. Navi check from Hunter - degree of uncertainty
14. Aswon - we think we're just gonna kill them do we want the vehicle, cos if not, aerial attack - is Germaine after the painting.
15. Hunter - we can just explain to her I think, and she'll understand based on what's happened.
16. Look at possible endpoints - Tehran, Qom and Arak. Kai - lets head to Arak, take us about an hour.
17. Aswon pressures Kai to call contact again, Kai pushes back. Aswon - did she know what a bunch of murderous fucks they are? Kai - they wouldn't hurt her if they need her to get rid of the item.
18. Message for Marius - Nadia, miss you, when will you be back, and BTW there's a parcel for Hunter. Marius - do we need to treat this like a bomb? Hunter dunno... Aswon - didn't you order the stuff for Aden. Oh yes. Check packing slip - imported from the UCAS. Marius calls Nadia, chit chat, Marius says they are closing in on the job and not too far from home. Treat the parcel as "potentially suspicious, keep it outside maybe". Tads suggest putting it in the trailer, in the lodge.
19. Hunter - if they are going to one of those three, it's a massive change of MO, they've stuck to all little places. Kai - you're not wrong, maybe just going to the outskirts, or keeping a low profile.
20. Kai - they may not have the painting still, they may have got rid of it, and just out on a murder spree! Aswon - though at this point we just want to find them for Germaine, the painting was just to confirm ID.
21. Kai's phone goes, Anahita calling. Art dealer from Germany just arrived in the city. Herr Gustav Liebhermoster. Kai - your contact, do you know them / like them. Kai - if these people we're chasing are meeting them, they're very dangerous. How much are you willing to spend - Kai, several grand. Oh - right, I was thinking hundreds for a fancy meal. Kai - no, willing to spend multi-k. Anahita gives name - Roll for Kai (antiques) and Hunter starts computer search.
22. Aswon - thinking about a plan, trail of blood, do your business - but let us know so we can deal with them after.
23. Hunter 1 success on search - will take a while. Kai - very mercenary, dirty, doesn't care about how it got to him. Aswon - ok, forget that last idea I had. That's not gonna work.
24. Aswon - maybe ask Germaine - she might be his arch nemesis or a rival bidder. Kai - let's NOT mention her or his name to each other then, that's just dodgy.
25. Team rest enroute, apart from Marius flying and Hunter researching. Team have idle discussion about possible stops and how to find them. Marius - if we wanted to refuel before a meet, there's only a few places around Tehran that are still going to be active. Hunter quick nav check, identifies four places likely to be smuggler refuelling stops just short of Tehran, all within about a 60km arc near the city. Fuel stops may be far enough away from Tehran to avoid BGC for an astral scout, Tads thinks.
26. 18:45, level with Qom, 150km from Tehran, only about 25 mins away. Kai - what do you think about astral recon Tads. If we stop somewhere, I'll go with a flock of spirits, it should be manageable. Aim to get about 10-15km from one fuel stop, then let Tads do recon.
27. Tads astral recon, doesn't hit threshold even with a re-roll - determines they are active and available, but doesn't spot anything unusual at any one of them.
28. 19:15, landed outside Tehran, Tads just debriefing team. Hunter checks pattern of disguises - Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter
29. Marius - we're getting close to going back to a place we swore we'd never go back to. Kai - that would mean we'd never go anywhere!
30. Kai - can we tour the roads now, and look for them? Aswon - not a terrible idea, limited options now, they're probably on the roads now, as it's not wasteland or desert. Kai - will our sensors pick them up now Marius? We'd need LOS, and we're looking down, difficult to get specific ID. Count number of roads - 5 probably routes in. Marius - can your spell make one of my drones invisible? Yes. We could send out the vector thrust drone to do a search, looking for the target vehicle. Tads - warns it will glow on the astral. Marius - but I don't want it noticed physically either and people think the government is spying on them and try to take it down. Aswon - more likely to be an evil spirit or creature spot it rather than other mages, based on the city and what happened.
31. Travelled 1500km from Keiths B&B, so they refill the tanks on the aircraft, not far off a full load.
32. Team discuss pros and cons about putting spell on the drone and if it makes it more or less vulnerable. Marius - will have to pilot/ride and observe - it doesn't have good enough sensors on its own. Tads puts invisibility (5) and stealth (3) on drone as it launches.
33. No enemy team spots drone, Marius doesn't spot Unsubtle - but does spot armoured limo turning up near Ghiassi Hospital driving under the canopy to the old A&E entrance. Marius goes away and loiters, and reports back to team. Asks for astral recon - Tads, no thank you. Kai how far away and how long - about 25km, only a few mins. Kai - does the hospital have a helipad? Yes. Marius - no way, ruined building not maintained for 50 years. Aswon - just don't throttle down fully until it's tested. Marius looks for other sites - park, 350 X 1400m. Aswon - park was nasty last time. Marius - we just don't go near the lake...
34. Drone spots the Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter - team start getting ready for takeoff.
35. Aswon - do we crash the meet and just kill *everyone*? Team - hmm. Marius - we have door guns and AV, and can just light them up from 400m up. You can go in on the ground and I can provide fire support with the drone.
36. Tads - will need to drop the spells on the drone to cover us, and can use a spirit to accident their vehicle. Aswon - suggest you try using the terrain against them, it won't be warded, and their vehicle probably will be.
37. Kai - does anyone have a problem with killing these people?
38. Tads - they were reported as having recon drones, and Dice was reported as being ex-miliary. Aswon - good call, better check for their condor drones up doing surveillance.

[pbangarth]

APC door as a ‘personal shield’

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

[Kren Cooper]

Technically not covered by the rules as written - but I figure a massive troll could make it work - especially with Body 15 and Strength 16.

One of our house rules / modifications is that the worn armour penalties (for both quickness and combat pool) doesn't go off Quickness alone - which was always an important stat anyway - but goes off an average of Body, Quickness and Strength. Otherwise the only workable way to make milspec or heavy security armour remotely usable normally were elves / humans with maxed out quickness...

This way if you're big enough to put on the massive breacher / bomb disposal armour and carry the weight, you can get away with it, and it means that orks / trolls in a street sam role (or as Mr Johnsons bodyguards, or even the nightclub bouncers) can be much more of a significant threat. So, under our table rules, "Door" as he's known could wear up to 12/12 armour, without penalties.

A shield that counts as AV armour is still not covered by the rules either of course - but I wanted him to be a *tough* nut to crack, and the team does have the tools - though it will slow them down. Of course if someone gets behind him or around the shield, then that's a *much* better way of dealing with him. But it also meant giving him a toy/advantage that can be clearly explained and justified (at least in my mind) without being really stealable by the players - they don't have anyone with the mass and strength to carry it and remain mobile, so it's also handy from that side of things.

[pbangarth]

Thanks for the background explanation. I wasn't challenging the concept, rather marveling at the awesomeness.

[Kren Cooper]

Thanks for the background explanation. I wasn't challenging the concept, rather marveling at the awesomeness.

No worries - didn't take it as a challenge, and more than happy to explain and go through the reasoning - getting feedback at all is great, and I figure if I go through my logic process, then people might point out either stupid loopholes I've overlooked or come up with awesome ideas or extensions to improve things more.

Thinking about the whole concept of using AV armour on a personal basis - I'm inclined for instance to go with a "divide your strength/body (whichever is lowest) by 2 and round down - the result is the max rating of a piece of AV armour you can move around as an individual without being horribly over-burdened.
A pedestrian with stats of 3 could move a piece of armour with AV1. Still technically enough to drop a 9m pistol to a 4L, then down to a 3L with the actual armour. Useful, but not game breaking. A 10S shotgun becomes a 4M after staging.
A good human runner with stats of 6 could move a piece of armour with AV3. You're still soaking the 9m pistol shot, albeit on 2s, and the 10S shotgun also drops to 2s - but you're still having to soak.
A strong ork / troll with stats of 10 can shift a piece of AV5 armour, and auto-bounces both shots now - but they *are* walking around with an APC door held in their hands, and are a very strong individual. And the enemy just need to throw the grenades *over* the shield and wait for the chunky salsa effect to happen... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[pbangarth]

I shudder when I read "chunky salsa". I once ran an adept with great strength and lots of skill in throwing weapons. He threw a grenade up onto a rooftop from which ambushers had us like fish in a barrel in the alleyway below. I rolled all 1s. No Karma Pool left.

The grenade fell down among us.

*sigh*

[Kren Cooper]

My sympathies pbangarth! Of all the times...


I've spent a bit of time going through Shadows of Europe today, and looking at the Germany section, along with gathering some of the Shadow-lurkers names and the kind of things they comment on to make up a "Shadowland style" article (hopefully) - something to feed to Hunter *just as they're landing* I think and give them some more information, to see if they change their minds, or rethink their plan.

What do you folks think of this - is the style/tone right, and do you think it gives enough information to cause concern without being too blatant?

Guten Tag! Just heard the news that a rare piece is up for sale in Berlin at the moment - being sold by everyone's favourite art smuggler Herr Gustav Liebhermoster. Anyone have the skinny on this?
Edelweiss

Invites went out a few days ago to an "exclusive event" hosted in the old Berlin University art campus, with a gallery of 12 unique pieces being offered. So far I've heard of 3 distinct pieces - Gorlagg's "The King of the Trolls", a life size oil painting of King Berthold on his throne, the day of his inauguration, Schmitt's "Cruelty", a sculpture depicting a mother and child killed by gas during the Eurowars, and Laurianellis' "Cleansing", an abstract art piece. Of those three the first is supposedly slightly magically active, thanks to the subject - as long as you subscribe to the conspiricy that King Berthold is actually Kaltenstein. Make of that what you will. "Cruelty" is a superb sculpt, showing the ravages of war. It's as mundane as they come, but a very powerful piece, and widely regarded as the sculptors best work to date. And "Cleansing" is according to a friend of mine, actually a powerful shamanic formula for a cleansing ritual, used by some mages to push back the Black Tide.
Sepherim

I can confirm the rumours about the forumula - it is a powerful spell that was responsible for much of the cleanup along the Pomeranian coastline and the reforestation inland from there. It's highly likely that the owner and author of this piece is trying to track it down and recover it.
Deep Green

They would be if they were still alive. Word is that they managed to track it down to a tender that services several of the arco-blocks, hinting at Proteus involvement. However there was a vicious fire-fight and a number of corporate security teams hunted down and sunk a fast civilian vessel in the area, which was lost with all hands.
Ecotape

That 'civilian' vessel was run by the Dortmunche brothers, and was a well equipped and tough cookie. If Proteus took it down, you can bet they lost some assets during the fight. The brothers never scrimped on their hardware and equipment! My guess is that the ritualist hired them for the infiltration, but the extraction was botched and noisy, and once the ant-hill was kicked, Proteus pulled out all the stops to hammer them flat.
Krabbe

All of these pieces discussed so far are valued mostly for their unique forms or subjects - while not exactly the standard fare for a corporate lobby or executive dining room, they represent a powerful draw for the private art collectors looking for something special.
Corpshark

Liebermoster is a powerful figure in Pomerania - very well connected with all three of the ruling noble houses of Reanka, Sarentin and Telearn. Though he'll never be admitted to the nobility himself, they all value his ability to obtain things for them, providing not just artwork but also items like rare coins, historical artefacts, banners and heraldry. Many of their "trappings of nobility" have been provided after some museum or art display was raided and ravaged.
Sociallite

I heard he's a dragon in disguise himself, and that he uses his powers to help him steal the art work.
Lapt

Maybe you should go discuss that with Dragonslayer Lapt? Seems like the right kind of crazy to work with...
Conspir-I-see

He's no dragon, but his bodyguards are not to be trifled with. Someone very nearly assassinated him at a meet a few years ago, and that lesson sunk in good and fast. He's been seen at a number of black clinics with his "staff" getting some fairly extensive body-mods installed in them, making sure they're up to the task of keeping him safe when he's dealing with both buyers and sellers.
Tin Man

Those guys freak me out! I ran into them at an art expo last month, and they gave me the willies. They all look so similar, and they just have such a cold, detatched aura to them. Like they're barely human. And they have such a cliched look - black suits and shades with white shirts. So last century.
Jelly Donut

That's because they're close to being zombies. He stuffs em full of cyberware to keep them performing well, and to keep tabs on 'em. Ran into them when we were handing over some artefacts a little while back. Pretty standard smooth glide of well tuned wires, and their skin has that plasticy look - good quality dermal overlay. But there's a bunch of other stuff in them as well. My EW operator said there was a mesh encrypted network set up between em, locked down tight. Still, we were selling, he was buying, and he paid for his stuff, so what do I care?
Big Bad Beeste

[pbangarth]

Style/tone looks right.

I don't know the full story of your current mission for the players, but this would certainly pique the interest of a few of my old PCs. That Cleansing formula is something else. I wouldn't be surprised if a number of international teams would perk up their ears at the mention of that thing. A certain dragon in South America, perhaps?

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 241 is now published, and can be found added to the main book and the 2 fan-fic sites.

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Welcome back everyone – hope you didn’t miss us too much!
First of all, now that we’re all caught up with the enemy team, here’s the background info I’d put together on the chase through the desert.
Timeline
• 1/2/61 Team make it to Muscat - homeless man beheaded, Grey nondescript delivery van seen on CCTV in nearby area
• 2/2/61 Taxi driver found with both hands cut off, bleeding out round the back of a taxi-rank. Claims to have been attacked by a demon clad in red fire - but slightly unhinged by the attack. Bakir El'Salem, 30 years old, lives locally with his mother.
• 3/2/61 Apartment cleaner taken captive - Saday Al'Nasrah, 48, Mother of 4, Widow (Anti-piracy Naval patrol), lives nearby and does cleaning to supplement Navy Pension, ward of her husbands brother who lives in Al'Ain. He has had to come to the city to look after the children, he knows about the death, the kids don't.
• 4/2/61 Apartment cleaner beheaded, corpse found amidst mass of bleach sprayed all over the room, destroying most evidence. Signs that at least 5 people had been here, Haram food supplies, pornography, alcohol and drugs use evident
• 5/2/61 Break in and fire, forensic investigation revealed the gallery security company guard was found in a dumpster, with his arms and legs sliced open.
• 6/2/61 Nahdah - farmer sliced open from shoulder to hip. Reports of a Brown UPS truck in village
• 7/2/61 Makaz'ash - village shopkeeper struck from behind and back sliced open. Yellow "Water aid" truck overnight
• 8/2/61 Arada - small child beheaded and left in a wadi. Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter
• 9/2/61 Al Batha - housewife sliced open in vegetable garden (Border between UAE and SA). Red and blue Abu Dhabi Import/Export Co
• 10/2/61 Hawiyah - Goat herder set upon and left leg sliced open. Reports of a Brown UPS truck in village - very unusual.
• 11/2/61 Al Hinah - Engineer digging new village well, left arm amputated at the elbow, Yellow "Water aid" truck
• 12/2/61 Al Warfah - Local Imam disembowled (border crossed into Kuwait from SA) Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter
• 13/2/61 Ar Rafaiya - Teenage boy in critical condition after right leg sliced open in curving pattern (Near border to Iran) Red and blue Abu Dhabi Import/Export Co
• 14/2/61 Nobquan - Goat herder beheaded, intricate carvings into back. Brown UPS truck. Co noticed by farmers.
• 15/2/61 Afus - two baby siblings bled out after someone removed their skin from 90% of their chest area. Yellow "Water aid" truck.
• 16/2/61 Tehran - Rusty White Al-Halal Chicken transporter

Originally I did have more “disguises” for the trucks, but after the team floundered a little, I cut them down and gave them some repeats to work with – the “clue” seemed to resonate with them and gave them an odd sense of accomplishment / victory, or confirmed for them that they’d discovered something important and valuable. I suspect this is one of those perception things, where as the GM with perfect knowledge, things seem obvious and the breadcrumb trail ‘should’ be easy to follow – but from the players point of view, all it takes is one weird comment to send them off down a dead end or confusing side route. In this case it was simple enough for me to change and simplify things behind the scenes, and hopefully none of the players ever realised that I’d dialled the difficulty level down a bit for them, or given them some clues – or guided them back onto the (hopefully well disguised and gentle) railroads I wanted them to follow for this bit of plot.

Of course, if they had decided to just abandon and ignore the quest they could have – they’re never tied to the plotline, but they would have had to deal with their fixer being disappointed with them (though she’d get over it, eventually…)
When I’d been working out the travel plans, I’d planned out a series of daily travels, and marked the co-ordinates and travel distances to give some kind of consistency in their movements and to allow the team to plot them easily – and for me to find all of the tiny little villages on the map again!
1. Muscat>Nahdah=175km
2. Nadah 22.50059119315495, 57.08444159420795 >Makaz'ash = 169
3. Makaz'ash 22.212334,55.531348 >Arada = 234
4. Arada 22.949410848963215, 53.33602183070591 >AlBatha = 224
5. Al Batha 24.139636041574988, 51.57314256791849 > Hawiyah = 235
6. Hawiyah 24.785928,49.329296 > Al Hinah = 250
7. Al Hinah 26.957847324626954, 48.76931074557828 > Al Warfah = 200
8. Al Warfah 28.60103323277198, 48.09690328904927 > Ar Rafaiya = 167
9. Ar Rafaiya 30.027547680438747, 47.70311666893344 > Nobquan = 217
10. Nobquan 31.43065949802019, 49.30952690081466 > Afus = 196
11. Afus 33.02906, 50.0928 > Tehran, 318 km

That gave the ground team a long journey, and the (player) air team a chance to make up multiple days of ground travel very quickly, using the aircrafts superior speed and direct-line ability to travel quickly and then spend time investigating. The hope was that they’d know they were days and days behind, but after the first few investigations realise that they’d made up lots of ground, and could extrapolate out and realise they would catch them fairly soon and get to their “current” positions.
Things didn’t work out quite that way of course – but no plot survives first contact with the players (always worth bearing in mind, and possibly a hard lesson for a GM to learn. The game is the PLAYERS story, set in your background. You have to go where they take the story, and adapt to it – or you might as well start writing scripts and have your actors read out your play. You can guide them, and give them nudges, but sometimes they’ll do the damdest things, and go off on tangents, and sometimes you have to just through a whole chunk of plot away and go with something new (or save the plot for later and recycle it in a silly hat so they won’t recognise it) and see where things take you.

At least most of the time you do anyway. Sometimes railroading is fine because they expect it – like when they’re on an actual train doing some kind of heist, then they’re expecting a very tightly controlled environment with limited options available to them… or if they were doing a job on a space station, and stowing away on the rocket booster… it’s going on one route, from source A to destination B, and there’s very little way to change that. But as a general thing these situations should be relatively few and far between. Subtle railroading is a hard skill to master, and it’s very easy to get the players backs up if you do it wrong. Hopefully it’s not something I mess up too often!

Anyway, they followed along and got the general idea of where to go, and decided to skip the last few parts of the investigation and play their hunch – which got them to the right destination and where I wanted them to be, so ‘oh look, you found a clue’ – and they bump into the limo and the enemy truck, just in time to get to them.

I’d not thought they would initially go for storming the meet, but then they seemed to get that as an idea in their head, so I quickly had to come up with some stats for not only the art dealers guards, but also the gang who call the hospital home and secured the neutral ground:

Liebers guards X 5
Humans, B5 Q5 S5 C3 I5 W5, R5(11), CP7, Init 4d6+11, GK5, KP5
Ares Alpha combat guns, 7M BF+FA, APDS, SL2, 5 points recoil comp, 3/3 armoured suits

Gangers X 40
Humans, All 3s, CP4, Init 1d6+3, GK1, KP1
Smersh-4 SMGs, ex-ex, 6M(8M) BF+FA, No RC, laser sights, wearing 2/2 armour

For minor NPCs, henchlings and cannon fodder, I generally go with a very abbreviated set of stats like that – just enough to work out what they do, and how tough they are, but with no more detail than that. If the players decide to do some weird investigation, I can always try to ad-lib something in on the fly, or just riff off what they’re discussing and picking up from the scene.

In this case, the gangers were just average humans, with very low end submachine guns (from my expanded table of SR3 weapons, where I’d put in a lot of 2nd/3rd world ‘cheap’ knock offs of the book weapons, with reduced stats. I used a lot of these early on in the game to help the players take some of the lucky hits without it being quite so lethal, but it’s also a good way to detail a certain level of professionalism for the npcs – whether they’re using the SMERSH SMG or a decent combat variant like a HK227 for instance) - that would be all on low initiative scores, lucky to get more than a single hit on a long burst from their weapons so dodging would be feasible – but with up to 40 of them coming out in waves or flanking around them represented a threat that could become serious if it wasn’t dealt with. On the other hand, if the 40 of them clustered up in one spot, it’d take Tads less than 3 seconds to knock them out with a single stun-ball without breaking a sweat…

The art dealers guards were a different matter though. With their Ares Alpha’s they should immediately appear as a much more competent and dangerous threat. In their bodyguard suits they wouldn’t be that durable, but they packed a very decent punch with their armour piercing damage shots – so quite ‘glass cannons’. With their good reaction boosting buffs though, they were likely to go quite high in the initiative order, and with smartlinked weapons were also going to get a number of hits on the players if they could get line of sight – and with the team only getting half their normal armour, someone was going to get hurt before they got taken down.

So, to give the team a chance to work out that this might not be a good idea, I fed Hunter some information he ‘just’ happened to stumble onto on Shadowland. Nothing in here should have said that this was definitely a “bad” idea – but it gave them some information to let them know that it carried risks. If they *had* hit both teams, then lead would certainly have been flying, but potentially they could have scored one of the very rare and unique art items mentioned, giving them a really unusual and valuable reward.

As it happened though, they decided to wait, and then saw the enemy team leaving and started their pursuit. The bad guys managed to get a lucky sensor roll on the drone, and picked up the pursuit – so they weren’t completely surprised, and they did manage to get a really good hit on the drone with a firebolt – which also then allowed me to drip feed a bit more information to the team about the mage’s power level. Tads pouted at me after the game and told me that she didn’t want to fight mages as powerful as her, and even stuck her bottom lip out at me… aww. Not that it changed anything!

With the enemy alerted somewhat, they decided to just go for it, prepared their attack and then struck from concealment. Despite the best efforts of the enemy team, they *could not* get a lock on the team through the concealment and Electronic Deceptions / RAMS, and in the end resorted to a very frustrated and desperate blindfire with the minigun (which still came as a nasty surprise to the players, especially to Marius I think – who realised that a hit from that would have probably sent them down with deadly damage and very little chance of dodging!) The mages stunball was (as I’d expected) negated by Tads and her shielding, and the flock of fire-elementals ran into Shimazu and also as expected, got a brutal shoeing.

What I hadn’t expected was Kai and his 2 dice in heavy weapons, and 2 dice of combat pool to roll *exceptionally* well, and get a solid hit with a 6 round burst of HMG fire. Even with the enemy teams 12 point of vehicle armour, they were soaking an 18D hit – so they were still fishing for 6s on the soak roll, and the rigger just ran out of dice, and took a big hit. As we were getting quite late into the session, I took that as an opportunity to have them suddenly smash off the main road and take cover in a building – so we can move to a ground assault phase next week, and get to mix it up at close range.

Based on the idle chatter of the team as we were wrapping up, I’m expecting at least one if not two passes from the air while they continue to pour fire into the enemy teams APC to ensure it’s not just damaged but DEAD dead, and that minigun isn’t a threat to them, before they set down and get ready to take on the enemy team. Shimazu will no doubt lead the charge, and I’ll probably remind him that he’s out of karma pool and needs to be a little careful – but again, I think the team should have this handled – if nothing else moving forward under spirit concealment should tip the odds in their favour, even if the other team are pretty well geared.
With a brutal application of overwhelming firepower, I can also wreck any of Team Unsubtles gear that I don’t want the players to have, but give them a nice fat credstick they got from selling the painting on to give them a nice reward for this leg of the mission.
Once that’s done, with luck they’ll head back to the ranch for a bit of R&R, and we can reset karma pools, award some good karma and bring this arc, and book 8 to a close – and then move on to book 9 and start to hot things up with Dragon plot and the Year of the Comet plotlines really starting to ramp up!


And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Wednesday 16/2/2061, Location: 35.65371, 51.33002 Time 19:30
2. Hunter finds info on Shadowland about the art dealer - cross loads to the rest of the team. Computer check - knows a few are decent rep.
3. Guten Tag! Just heard the news that a rare piece might be up for sale in Berlin in the near future - being sold by everyone's favourite art smuggler Herr Gustav Liebhermoster. Anyone have the skinny on this?
4. Edelweiss
5. Invites went out a few days ago to an "exclusive event" hosted in the old Berlin University art campus, with a gallery of 12 unique pieces being offered. So far I've heard of 3 distinct pieces - Gorlagg's "The King of the Trolls", a life size oil painting of King Berthold on his throne, the day of his inauguration, Schmitt's "Cruelty", a sculpture depicting a mother and child killed by gas during the Eurowars, and Laurianellis' "Cleansing", an abstract art piece. Of those three the first is supposedly slightly magically active, thanks to the subject - as long as you subscribe to the conspiracy that King Berthold is actually Kaltenstein. Make of that what you will. "Cruelty" is a superb sculpt, showing the ravages of war. It's as mundane as they come, but a very powerful piece, and widely regarded as the sculptors best work to date. And "Cleansing" is according to a friend of mine, actually a powerful shamanic formula for a cleansing ritual, used by some mages to push back the Black Tide.
6. Sepherim
7. I can confirm the rumours about the formula - it is a powerful spell that was responsible for much of the cleanup along the Pomeranian coastline and the reforestation inland from there. It's highly likely that the owner and author of this piece is trying to track it down and recover it.
8. Deep Green
9. They would be if they were still alive. Word is that they managed to track it down to a tender that services several of the arco-blocks, hinting at Proteus involvement. However there was a vicious fire-fight and a number of corporate security teams hunted down and sunk a fast civilian vessel in the area, which was lost with all hands.
10. Ecotape

11. That 'civilian' vessel was run by the Dortmunche brothers, and was a well equipped and tough cookie. If Proteus took it down, you can bet they lost some assets during the fight. The brothers never scrimped on their hardware and equipment! My guess is that the ritualist hired them for the infiltration, but the extraction was botched and noisy, and once the ant-hill was kicked, Proteus pulled out all the stops to hammer them flat.
12. Krabbe
13. All of these pieces discussed so far are valued mostly for their unique forms or subjects - while not exactly the standard fare for a corporate lobby or executive dining room, they represent a powerful draw for the private art collectors looking for something special.
14. Corpshark
15. Liebermoster is a powerful figure in Pomerania - very well connected with all three of the ruling noble houses of Reanka, Sarentin and Telearn. Though he'll never be admitted to the nobility himself, they all value his ability to obtain things for them, providing not just artwork but also items like rare coins, historical artefacts, banners and heraldry. Many of their "trappings of nobility" have been provided after some museum or art display was raided and ravaged.
16. Sociallite
17. I heard he's a dragon in disguise himself, and that he uses his powers to help him steal the art work.
18. Lapt
19. Maybe you should go discuss that with Dragonslayer Lapt? Seems like the right kind of crazy to work with...
20. Conspir-I-see
21. He's no dragon, but his bodyguards are not to be trifled with. Someone very nearly assassinated him at a meet a few years ago, and that lesson sunk in good and fast. He's been seen at a number of black clinics with his "staff" getting some fairly extensive body-mods installed in them, making sure they're up to the task of keeping him safe when he's dealing with both buyers and sellers.
22. Tin Man
23. Those guys freak me out! I ran into them at an art expo last month, and they gave me the willies. They all look so similar, and they just have such a cold, detached aura to them. Like they're barely human. And they have such a cliched look - black suits and shades with white shirts. So last century.
24. Jelly Donut
25. That's because they're close to being zombies. He stuffs em full of cyberware to keep them performing well, and to keep tabs on 'em. Ran into them when we were handing over some artefacts a little while back. Pretty standard smooth glide of well tuned wires, and their skin has that plasticky look - good quality dermal overlay. But there's a bunch of other stuff in them as well. My EW operator said there was a mesh encrypted network set up between em, locked down tight. Still, we were selling, he was buying, and he paid for his stuff, so what do I care?
26. Big Bad Beeste
27. Tads - suggest we wait until after the deal, Germaine doesn't want the painting. Aswon - I agree. Hunter - our beefs not with him, we could wait until after he's gone. Aswon - as long as we're not being indiscriminate.
28. Marius - so whats the consensus - go in with surprise, or wait. Aswon - rather not attract attention. Hit the other team, that's what Germaine wants. We don't normally do hits, but this team needs putting down.
29. Tads - can advise Germaine about the berlin art sale, maybe she wants to follow up.
30. Aswon - don't tell her that, we're not off to steal from an art auction
31. Marius - I'm not going to SK heartlands. Aswon - it's a free city isn't it? Marius - don't care.
32. Landed at edge of park, concessions area, 1000m from hospital.
33. Hospital - 14 stories, top 9 ruined and collapsed, bottom just about inhabitable, though lots of rubble laying around. Surrounded by smaller apartment buildings, 5-6 stories, mostly collapsed. It looks like the hospital was caught by incidental fire, rather than targeted. Evidence of fire / inhabitation. Hospital is most intact in the area, not that it's saying much
34. Kai thinks about who is coming/going first - they will have arranged something, but could go either way.
35. Map shown and described.
36. Tads - can we hack their vehicle? Marius - in theory yes, in practice probably not.
37. Aswon - wait for the deal to go down, then take off and hose them out of the side doors.
38. Marius looks at terrain and tries to analyse cover / canyon tracing or more open terrain. Explains about resource to fly / avoid damage.
39. Tads - get a spirit to go do accident on the wheels of their vehicle. Aswon - wait until they're in, they have a mage, need to break LOS. Perhaps go loiter in the more built-up area. Marius - they could see us. Aswon - we are concealed, its night, pretty good odds.
40. Half a dozen gangers come out and take up concealed positions, see if they spot the drone - no. Marius puts live feed up on screens.
41. Marius vehicle design check - analyse weight and ride, vehicle is all wrong, doesn't make sense, very low on treads, may have spaced armour. Tads - will that cover the top? Marius - especially the top. 6 wheel, difficult to stop. Could hide all kinds of nasty surprises.
42. Aswon - ok, new plan. Follow them, wait for them to stop somewhere, get a sensor lock and just follow them until they stop for the night? They do have more legs, but they might not want to go anywhere far... Tads - can we get an AoD tracker on them? Marius - tricky... have to get up close. Tads - maybe my spirit could deliver.
43. Team come out, get into their vehicle - times up. Kai - what are the weakest points? Marius - drivers windscreen, wheels.
44. Marius takes off, Kai on 1 door gun, Shimazu armours up. Kai checks on spirit status with Tads. Hunter moves to rear ramp. Aswon moves to warded door with 50 cal.
45. Enemy team heading for main road, to turn either N or S, team head south, ready to pursue N if needed. Team turn north, spot drone, lash with lidar, Marius detects and backs off.
46. open the party with a firebolt, 4 success, Marius dodges with 3, 8D drops to 4S firebolt, no success on soak, drones takes serious damage. Drops feed, Marius pulls it back and away, they spot the firebolt comes from the front of the vehicle.
47. Marius low and fast from straight behind, then climb and peel to port,
48. Tads assenses - at least a F8 firebolt. Then a F8 spirit ball, bounces off Tad's shielding. Marius sensor check - they are looking, but not locked up. Breaks up and port, swings Aswon into position. Marius goes full noise, max EDs and flux.
49. Aswon shot with 50 cal, gets 1, buys 1, hits and does Light damage. Tads does a trid phantasm, 1 round smoothing, swaps locations in flat plane ahead. Hunter shoots panther cannon, 20D non-AV, hits roof, disintegrates. Don't have a lock on the tilt-wing yet
50. Marius continues to bank left, Hunter shoots again, a bit more debris from the top, not as much as last time.
51. Sensor check from Marius, spots the shroud coming off - Tads spots the camo/concealment/vehicle mods
52. Kai into position, 6 round FA burst - hits for 18d, soaks a little, but good hit. Enemy lurches across road onto other side of median.
53. F6 fire elementals burst from van to head to tilt-wing. Hunter shoots again, now no effect, swaps from panther canon to door gun.
54. Dice gets proper pissed and fires into the flux, FA minigun, Marius stands craft on the side to avoid FA burst.
55. Fire elementals close in, Tads waits for them to come in through unwarded door. Shimazu kills it instantly. Tads sends 1 spirit to accident their vehicle - ineffective.
56. Enemy team bail into a building while the team circle and close, abandoning vehicle and taking cover with equipment.
57. Team spot Unsubtle and recognise.

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 242 is now published, and can be found added
Added to the end of Book 8: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbppsyl59blld45/S...ok%208.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

This is the end of “Book 8”, bringing it to 400 pages and just shy of 260,000 words, and the running total for the whole campaign to 2671 pages and 1.7 million words. If you’re keeping up – well done, have a cookie.

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Unfortunately Kai couldn’t be with us this week – work kept him late – but we’ll normally run with one person down unless they were critical to the plot, with their character going in the “blanket box” and generally taking a back seat. As this was going to be a ground assault, which is definitely not Kai’s specialist area, this was no problem and it was very easy to arrange for him to stay on the chopper.

At first the team seemed to pause, and I wondered if they were going to leave the enemy with no vehicle and just move on – but once people again re-iterated what a bunch of psycho nut-bags they were, and that it only took one of them to have the vindictive flaw to want to hunt us down, that may have sealed the deal. If I happened to be smirking at the camera while they mentioned the ‘vindictive’ thing, and the players took that to mean something – well, that’s them meta-gaming, right? And they deserve everything they get (especially as it wasn’t true).

A quick landing, and a new temporary door made in the building, and in they charge – and Shimazu slams into the enemy troll and as expected wins combat handily. And then looks slightly concerned as he bounces off the trolls high body anyway. We start the combat rounds proper after rolling initiative, and this happens again, and there’s a sudden dismay starting to creep into Shimazu’s face as he works through the logic:
• I can win combat, every time – I just have more dice, and even with troll reach to counter, I have attunement.
• When I win combat, my attack is mostly neutered by his very high impact armour. What’s left is easily soaked by 15 body.
• I can bypass the armour by calling the shot – but that pushes my target numbers up to the point where I may not win combat easily – or at all.
• If the troll hits me, I’m soaking a horribly high strength dikoted axe attack. And I don’t have the same level of armour.
• And I’m out of karma pool. Like…completely out. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
• I need the rest of the team in, to help me get friends in the melee modifiers if nothing else – so I can AFFORD to call the shot – or I can never take this monster down…
I think this is the first time he’s run into an opponent that he just couldn’t hurt effectively, and I could see him reaching for ‘other solutions’ such as the hand-gun as he floundered a little bit – but from a GM perspective I thought it was nice to be able to remind him that while he’s exceptionally good and dangerous with that sword – he’s not got an “I Win” button.

For reference, here are the stats of the enemy team – feel free to ask if any of the abbreviations or notations don’t make sense!

Unsubtle
Modulo - augmented human with a cyber-larynx after taking a knife in it during a fight. Good reactions, dermal plating, heavy armour, electronics and computers, SMG
B6 Q7 S6 I5 C3 W5 R10, CP8, Init 4d6+10, GK 12, KP 8
Light security armour with helmet 6/5, Smartlink-2, voice modulator. Cyber eyes with LL, FC, Ultrasound, Camera, router. Headware memory. Implanted tac radio encryption 3, Paired dikoted spurs (10S), Wires 3 (beta).
HK-227S, 28 rounds APDS, Underbarrel weight/personalised grip, 8M base damage SA 11S burst, RC of 5 total.

Mono - female ork phys ad with duel wield ambidex 8 ares monoswords and catsuit with colour changing el wire, improved blades, jumping, senses, B+E specialist.
B8, Q7, S9, C3, I5, W5, R6, CP 8, Init 4d6+8. GK 10, KP 7
2 X Ares Monoswords, reach 1 (12M each), Armoured catsuit 2/2 with EL wire. Great leap 4 (1), Improved reflexes 3 (4,Geased, Cutting), Improved hearing, Ultrasound, Flare Comp, Smell (1), Improved skill - edged 4(2). Metamagics - Centering S+A, Centering-Edged, Masking, Improved Masking.
Skills: Edged 8(12), Centering (chanting) 6. Athletics 6, Stealth/sneaking 5/7, Electronics 6, Electronics B/R 6.

Door - troll, ex bouncer, laser axe and massive combat shield made of AV armour, high strength, but not quick or high WP
B15, Q5, S16, C2, I4, W3, R4/8, CP 6, Init 3d6+8. GK 14, KP 9
Laser combat axe, reach 1+troll 1, 1/2 handed (15S/21S), APC door shield (6 points vehicle armour). Wired reflexes 2, Eyes with LL,FC, Thermo, Zoom. Smartlink.
Heavy security armour with helmet+forearm guards, 8/8, with anti-taser 6, anti-fire 6, BF shotgun with pistol grip, can be mounted in the door. Modified Enfield AS-7, 8S SA, 11D BF, RC of 2 on the gun, +2 for strength.
Shotguns 6, Pole weapons 8, Athletics 5, Stealth 4, Intimidation 4,

Gorgon - dwarf hermetic with a penchant for red / fire spells
B4 Q4 S3 C6 I7 W8 R5 CP 9, Init 4d6+5. GK 6, KP 10,
Spellfoci (Fire) R4, spellslinger (Magic 8 ) - fireballs (7), firebolt (8 ), reactions 1 on SF (ruby ring), firewall-6 on SF (ruby necklace), hot potato (5), ignite (5), spirit ball 8, G3, masking, and physical prowess (2 X pain resistance) ((chance for tads to penetrate masking and spot power to learn technique))
Spellcasting 8, Spell pool 8

Dice - human, rigger 3, drives the team vehicle and uses a couple of condors for recon. Blue combover hair, slender, ex-military
B4, Q6, S4, C3, I6, W6, R6, CP9, Init 1dd6+6 / 4d6+12
IWS Mk6 Armed drone 4/4, Speed 35, Accel 3, Body 2, Armour 4, Sig 6, Sensor 3 - armed with splat glue gun (Str 6 to break free)

Vehicle = Saab Wolverine (APC, P163 R3, quasi variant of LAV-93 Devil rat,
Handling 5/4, Speed 75, Accel 5, Body 7, Armour 12, Sig 4, Auto 2, Pilot 1, Sensor 3, Cargo 12, Load 2000, Seating 2+2b (metahuman adj), Entry 3h+1r, Fuel Diesel-300l, Econ 2km/l, Range 600, Chassis APC (Wheel), SI 2.5, Avail 16.24 days, Cost 750,000
Small turret with Saab Thunderbolt minigun: HMG Ranges, 10S base, 15 round FA bursts, Gunnery recoil comp of 9, SL2 integration, giving +4 mod to hit. Turret is disguised in a replaceable extruded "top" fairing, folds out around a thin frame to disguise / hide the vehicle, making it look like a hi-top version of a delivery truck.

As a team, they were reasonably well equipped and while maybe not “prime” runners, they were certainly competent and not to be taken lightly – such a shame they had a very high asshole count.

The fight lasted only one combat round really – by the end of that first full round Door was out of Karma Pool and Good Karma, and was on 9 boxes of damage, so the end was inevitable and I hand-waved the next round, leaving the players to tidy up and grab some loot. The two sustaining foci made Tads happy – though she then immediately realised how much karma the big one was going to take to bond – and they managed to recover some other useful stuff (such as the credstick with pay for the painting from the art dealer) before getting back into the air and heading home.

With them having finished their hunt, and the major expedition they’ve been on for a while, it was certainly time for Karma Pools to refresh and for Karma to be awarded. On my “enormous shadowrun tracker of doom™” spreadsheet I have a tab dedicated to karma, and have a list of team awards for the major plot objectives as well as a table to fill in for individual awards – normally I do a quick recap through the episodes and look for cool stuff the players have done to start populating this, but I also tell the players they should be keeping notes, and to claim for stuff. So, the start of next weeks session is likely to be taken up with some ooc admin on awards of karma and upgrading skills, and possibly a little downtime. I suspect we’re going to be looking at 25+ karma (It’s been 24 play sessions since there was last an award…) so initiation may be an option for some of them, and I’m sure Tads wants to learn some spells, which means astral quests to help out with that.

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Wednesday 16/2/2061, Location: 35.67591, 51.34556 Time 20:15
2. Aswon - are we definitely taking them out. Marius - I am happy to do that, but either we trash the vehicle and leave, or we wipe out the entire team, with no chance of anything living or we'll be looking over our shoulder forever.
3. Tads - they're in, in an ambush position dangerous for us. If we take out their van, isn't that enough?
4. Marius - happy they don't have a lock on our vehicle, but could they have a magical trace on the wards?
5. Shimazu - 2nd time we've bumped into them, we operate in the same kind of rough area - we might run into them again.
6. Hunter - they're unsubtle - maybe we can just trash their rep on Shadowland. More than one way to hurt a team.
7. Kai - take out the truck, team do that. Trash their vehicle, Tads keeps astral overwatch.
8. Look at building, planning sky assault or HMG/panther extra doors. Front windows covered with rubble.
9. Marius looks for electronic footprint. Lifesigns in the middle, electronic nearer the back.
10. Aswon suggest blowing a hole in the roof while Hunter drops grenades in through the hole. Team agree to go with that.
11. Aswon panther canon blows 2 holes, one on life signs, one off to the side to herd. Hunter drops grenades in from MGL6 - both scatter quite wide. Firing IPE grenades.
12. One of the enemy does blind fire up through the hole - 3M after vehicle armour. Life signs move towards front door, e-sig towards the back. Team open up with HMG and just riddle the building - use 39 (Kai), 36 (Hunter) and 35 (Aswon) AV HMG. All dead but one target.
13. Tads - I could go scouting. Aswon - no, that's all kinds of dangerous, you'll get your head cut off. We need me and Shimazu to go in.
14. Shimazu - can we just go through the wall, blow a hole?
15. Marius touch and go, drop most of team off, keeps Kai on door gun. Tads put spell defence on tilt-wing, shielding up on team.
16. Hunter fires panther cannon, excellent shot, blows a 2m hole in the wall.
17. Shimazu charges in, Troll attacks, Shimazu hits, but is soaked.
18. Roll init
19. Aswon 15, Hunter 14, Shimazu 26, Tads 19, Troll 13
20. Shimazu first, HtH, Troll gets 11, buys 5 = 16. Loses by 1. Soaks 9m
21. Tads - sends spirits to attack
22. Aswon - steps in to HtH, 11 vs 5, 10D - soaks.
23. Hunter - moves in for 3 round burst to flank/rear, rr+2nd rr, 5 success, 12D apds. Gets 4 with a RR, buys 4, takes none
24. Troll - attacks Hunter, beats by 4, Hunter buys 5 and disengages
25. Shimazu attacks, wins, but soaks.
26. Tads - delay
27. Aswon - called shot to bypass armour. 10D - soaks to an M.
28. Hunter - FA, 7 round burst, 3s to hit, massive hit, one on soak, buys one, s+M
29. Shimazu quick draw and shoot to the head, misses.
30. Next combat round, finish him off.
31. Stab anyone with cyber-eyes with taser staff to wreck footage. Loot the bodies, find the credstick from the art-dealer, electronics are wiped apart from recent map.
32. Get sustaining foci - increase reflexes on a gold ring with a small single ruby, F6 was a necklace with 6 rubys in gold/silver filigree cages. Mono's swords have their own BGC of 2
33. Team head back to the ranch, 524km 22:00 ETA.
34. Tearful reunion with Nadia, KP refresh

[Kren Cooper]

Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 243 is now published, starting Book 9 of the series!
Book 9: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k181wxc14lfb1ah/S...ok%209.pdf?dl=0
The story at FanFiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-Story
The story at Archive Of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=true

Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:
Good evening all! It’s time for Book 9, and a whole new series of adventures for the smuggler team!

Having finished the man-hunt for Germaine, it was time to award Karma – with the team getting between 25 and 28 karma each for the 24 sessions played since the last award.

Here’s how the characters broke down / spent their awards:

Hunter – raised his Navigation from 2 to 3, Electronics from 2 to 3, Stealth from 5 to 6, and Specialised in Heavy Weapons into Panther Cannon, buying firefighting at 1 and Dutch at 1. Of those, he’s been using all of the skills in-mission except the stealth, and I was happy to count them as insta-buys / time spent on training completed – so it was mainly the Stealth increase he was training up during the week of downtime at the ranch. He’s now up to Karma Pool 12 and 251 Karma earnt, and goes into the next mission with 22 Good Karma on hand.

Marius – Raised his etiquette from 2 to 3, Gunnery from 3 to 4, Arabic from 3 to 4, Bought sensor blackspots at 1, Border procedures at 1, then raised to 2. Like Hunter, all of those are skills he’s been using in-game, so were fine IMO for insta-buys. His big spends however was pushing quickness from 5 to 6 and strength from 4 to 5 – so that’s what he spent an entire week working on.
I also asked him a question he’s only previously heard asked to Aswon. “Hey, Marius – do you want to spend 5 Karma on your cyberware?” He stopped and looked at me, everyone else stopped and made an “oooh” noise, and he suddenly felt very ‘on the spot’. In the end curiosity won out, and he said yes - so he got to advance his ‘campaign special’ one rank. While Aswon’s spear gave him shielding, and then some fire resistance, Marius has very experimental cyberware – a cutting edge design from Ares. So, with a big firmware patch, he got to upgrade and got some bonus quickness and reaction out of it – and Aswon’s player immediately put 2 and 2 together and said “well, looks like you actually got some move-by-wire”. He’s nearly right, too. *wink*
That puts Marius onto Karma Pool 12 as well, with 258 Good Karma earnt, and 5 good karma remaining.

Shimazu – went for the big guns, and initiated again, pushing him up to grade 8. That used up 26 karma, so there’s not really room for anything else – and he went with a custom metamagic ability called ‘Sword Focus Ki’ – this lets him use his distance strike with his sword. He also put a bunch of his powerpoints from the initiation into Attribute Boost (strength) to help him deal with stuff like the trolls in the future. He’s gonna hit like an absolute truck after this – but the drain could be a handful too!
Shimazu is now on Karma pool 12 as well, 256 good karma earnt and 9 remaining.

Kai went with improving his heavy weapons from 2 to 3, athletics 3 to 4, smuggling routes from 5 to 6 and his etiquette from 6 to 7, along with buying Arabic at 1 and improving Azerbaijani from 1 to 2. His big spend there of course is the etiquette, but as the teams Face, he does a lot of the negotiations and interactions with NPCs, so that’s hardly a surprising route for him.
He’s now also on Karma Pool 12, with 250 Good Karma earnt and 6 remaining.

Aswon – also went for initiating, using the saved up ‘deed’ for defeating the horror’s plans, making his rise from grade 4 to 5 only cost him 15 karma. Plumping for the metamagic of Infusion, he can now shift his powers around and boost some of his skills at need, taking a corresponding loss of power from other abilities when the Infusion timer expires. He’s not chosen his power points yet, so he’s got 1 PP worth of abilities to buy/develop when he needs to.
Aswon tends to be one of the more proactive players, and normally gets a bonus point or so per run for funky ideas, so he’s managed to cross the threshold to KP13, with 271 karma earnt, and 20 in the bank ready to spend.

And last, but certainly not least – there’s Tads. She’s spent a bunch of money and karma on buying and bonding new foci – a F3 sustaining foci for her Improved Charisma spell (and if she goes all in on the casting and throws a re-roll, then potentially she could get a +3 charisma, taking her to 9 – with a corresponding increase in the number of spirits summonable, and also easily then managing the increased drain to go for Force 4 great forms for the team, rather than the current Force 3 – which will give them a significant boost!), and two Force 1 for a lightning aura spell she intends to use on Aswon and Shimazu. Along with that she’s worked on upping her stunball from force 5 to force 7 to keep pace with the increasing level of threats the team are facing, and learning a f5 agony spell to give her a different tool / option for dealing with opponents. She’s also pushing polearm from 4-5 (over the linked attribute, so costing her more) and paranormal creatures from 3 to 4 – both skills she’s been using consistently as well.
That puts Tads on Karma Pool 13 as well, with 269 karma earnt, and 5 karma remaining.

With a solid week of downtime needed for Shimazu to do his initiation, that set the minimum time, so it was “training montage” fast-forward o’clock. They reported in to Germaine and Aden, and that triggered the next piece of plot. On getting to the mountain and handing over the rhenium-tantalum device to him, and veiled hints at surgery, the team spent a solid minute mocking Hunter who was apparently now “going to get a dragon-butt plug”. Oh well, at least they were happy… 😉

That sets them up to go back to Turkey and take out the artillery unit that is firing enhanced chemical shells up into the Kurdish controlled areas, destroying the biome up there – so at least it’s something the magic users will be happy about. They immediately went to town trying to get hold of some big pew-pews to deal with military grade armour and threats, so that sucked away >50k of their cash. Doing the job for Aden is a requirement (because despite being quite tough now, they are still small, crunchy and would taste good with ketchup in a fight with a great dragon…) – and though they don’t know it yet, the ‘device’ is the unlock item for Hunter’s special campaign item.

Next up, Saito gave Shimazu a call – this is a mission to take them to a Sader Krupp launch facility in the former USSR, to recon and then sabotage one of the “probe race” rockets, and to also meet another team. This is going to be a high paying mission, but with plenty of risk and some fairly stiff opposition. Blowing up a rocket during orbital boost will certainly get some attention focussed their way!

And last of all, Johanna from Maersk wants someone she’s worked with before to deal with some marauding SK threats against her oil fields. This is a mid-pay, mid-risk job for the team. But, trying to do all three in the timespan allowed will be very tough, so they may need to drop one of them and disappoint a contact – time for them to decide who they want to keep sweet!

And of course, doing either of jobs 2 and 3 will put them on Lofwyr’s radar somewhat, which is going to make Marius *ecstatic* with joy.

And as usual, here are the notes from the game session to compare / contrast with the narrative:
1. Thursday 17/2/2061, Location: 40.02426, 48.95799 Time 07:00
2. Tads out for morning prayers - disturbed by the smell of burning pine trees and the sound of roaring fires, shaken - no sign/smell/hearing when she investigates
3. Aswon asks team - master of self, master of the spear - which? Or both - will need a month+. Marius and Hunter are ok with this.
4. Tads - strength or polearm. Aswon advises poles. Upgrade stun ball from F5 to F7, 7k, may take weeks. Wants to spend 45k on improved charisma SF. With more charisma, stronger minion spirits. Looked through Gorgon spell list, hermetic - ick. Flame aura no - but lightning? Does Shimazu want - emphatic yes. Aswon wants as well. Why not both... Also considering Agony spell...
5. Back to Aswon, undecided on path. Hunter suggests infusion. Kai agrees. Hunter - adds flexibility. Aswon asks Shimazu - he likes being one with the weapon. but, your skills come from you, not the weapon, you're already going down that route.
6. Evening of Thursday - Marius - system log at 80%, please download. Hook up through Hunters deck and supply.
7. Hunter shows dossier to team about Unsubtle. Tads uncomfortable with that - they're dead, but may lead other people to be interested in them. Kai - does it include art dealer - Hunter, no. Tads offers mindlink to show Germaine exactly what happened. Germaine might want to find art dealer - Tads, no, Germany. Kai - don't jump to conclusions - he *might* be going to Germany, but might not. Tads - they signed their own death warrants with their behaviour though. Kai - we ought to let her know, and tell her about the art dealer. Ask her about if ok to put details up on Shadowland about the double crossers. Offers fuel value to the bowser at the ranch. works it out, about 3k litres.
8. On the credstick taken from Unsubtle: 184,951 Nuyen
9. Tads orders stuff, initiating
10. By day 7, They contact Aden - ahh good, about to contact you anyway. Meet me at the same place as before, sunset tomorrow.
11. Go to Aden, land, where is the device. Then a job to Turkey to take out the arty. Message to Hunter directly - don't eat / drink after lunchtime. Kai asks about fuel budget - steal from the army barracks. Tads asks if she can ask. Yes, She asks. It will help. Make you stronger. You may go now.
12. Fly back home - Hunter, huge message waiting, Ares Firmware update. Check it over, analyse, Kai medical analysis - looks fine.
13. Upgrade time. 5 min coma. Gets upgrade bonus.
14. 9 days since back to the ranch. Initiation all done, small sustaining foci got.
15. Aswon wants to get ammo - AV / explosives. Wants to pump contacts
16. Aswon gets on to Germaine - no AV/APDS, but Panther AV, 400 Nuyen per round - 50 available, buys them all. Hunter sends flowers. IPE grenades. C12 and detonators+ C4. Great Dragon ATGM X 4 7.5k
17. Talk about getting on to Patrick as well.
18. Germaine comes back with some APDS for rifle, and smg/pistol, up to 3 boxes per size, and 1 box of 100 AV HMG, but at +1 SI.
19. Saito - Baikonur job, 1250km from Ranch. Long range surveillance, hard security target, western Asia. Shimazu, let me check with the team, got a meeting with a dragon, *excuse me* - yeah, it's a thing, let me check and get back to you.
20. Kai - big smiles, Johanna - ask for help with SK Pests
21. Tads - doing a run to the Tashkent temple to check. Then checks Nenet tribes area - appear to be fine.