Who's yer contact?, Your favorite odd-man-out contacts? Options

[ShadowDragon8685]

Okay, I'm sure everybody's thought of "Bartender," "Lone Star Beat Cop," and "Mafia Don" before. But who's your favorite off-the-wall, little-known contacts?

For me, it's the chief medical examiner at the city morgue.

This man knows everything there is to know about deaths going down. Every sidewalk sleeper, bum, and general gang-banger, up to all of the highest-rated Important People come through his doors, if they're dead. He's the man to talk to if you want to know what's going down as far as lethalities.

So, for example, your buddy CME Morris (Or whatever your DM names him,) knows that you have a Narcojet pistol you use to bring people down non-lethally. He also knows that the recent serial homocide is all connected by one thing: Narcojet pistols.

So, after sidling up to the bar with you and discreetly asking if you've used that pistol of yours recently, and getting a No answer, (hopefully!,) he tells you you might want to not only not use it, but ditch it, and tells you why.

This does two things. One, if your Shadowrunner team is a good samaritan team, it gives them something to do; tracking down a serial killer. There may even be a reward they can collect. Two, it tells the player in question to ditch his narcojet, ASAP.

So, you're in the know about what's lethal and what's not. He can give you a heads-up sometimes if trouble is coming your way. "A Lone Star beat cop went down Line of Duty near your favorite doss. They're about to go ape and start door-to-dooring it, and they won't be knocking politely from what I hear. You might wanna be in Aruba or somewhere when that happens."

Plus, he can be a valuable resource, if you jack his level up to 3 or so. Not only is he likely to have a grab bag assortment of Cyberwear lying around you might be able to browse, but the corpses themselves. Lots of Jane and John Does come through his doors. So, say you need to 'dissapear' because Renraku has put out a bounty on you. You go down the morgue, shop around until you find a Jane or John Doe who matches your general build and looks. You pay your friend, 'claim possession' of your 'dearly depared relative''s body, take them down to your doss, put a couple of things on the corpse that will be easily identified as yours, and torch the place to the ground.

Then you high-tail it to a plastic surgeon's, and spend awhile someplace quiet with your new face, wait for the Corp to be convinced you're really dead.


That's just my take. That also explains part of my sig. What do you think? What about you? Who're your interesting contacts?

[fistandantilus4....]

My favorite has been the gargoyle shaman information broker.

The character , Gabriel, is a gothic style character, living in a high rise in dowtown in gargoylw shaman style (lots of reds and blacks and long coats too ;) ).
But since he's more interested in knowledge than moeny ( and since he already ahs a lot of it anyways) he deals purely in information, because that is what truely interests him. Knowledge is power after all.

He is skilled in divining and psychometry (although he rarely gets the chance t ouse it , as he rarely leaves ), and has excellent computer skills (uses a trode). THe only pay he will take is in information, and exchange . The information offered must be equal to at least to the information that he provides.

If his contact doesn't have anything worth while, there are always things Gabriel wants to know, and so is also an excellent source of shadowruns.

[Adarael]

Among the wierder contacts I've had, or had sprung on me, include the following:

Semi-autistic media junkie: the guy who watches all the pirate trid feeds, the corporate newsfeeds, the scuttlebutt on the 'net. Because if you need a guy to give you the head's up on everything that's fit to print (and you don't need very many specifics) this is the guy to go to. A player had this one, and also...

The Pirate Trid Broadcaster: Because when you need to shout to the world, shout to the wold in mono and over a scratchy feed. And besides, nothing to sew misinformation than a station that only broadcasts 'the truth.' <G>

Exotic Pets Dealer: This one was pure genius, I have to admit. The PC who had this one was a lawyer-psycho along the lines of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. He had this guy for three reasons:
1) Very few people look for criminals in a pet store.
2) Many exotic animals are poisonous, and therefore good to have around in case you need someone dead.
3) He had a penchant for torturing people using animals. His snake-and-unruly-hooker escapade is still legendary.
No, this was not a moral man.

Tailor: I had a character once who was a very James-Bond type of guy. And Bond? He's ALWAYS well-dressed, yet his clothing always has those secret pockets, buttons connected by monowire, concealed bombs in his shoes, et cetera.

[DocMortand]

Actually the one that brought the house down for me was the one character who had two Level 2 "Ho"s. He actually tried to use them for distraction, but due to a freak roll by me they both were occupied at the time...

Had us in stitches tho...the amount of level 2 contacts he had was incredible (around 15-20 if I remember correctly...he had a LOT of extra money to blow at startup). I was tempted to say he had a day job (errr night job) keeping the ho's busy...

[Jrayjoker]

The most esoteric contact we had was a professional gambler. I houseruled he had a lot of Mafia knowledge skills, but wasn't connected. And there was never a time that he was not found playing at his table in the casino. Never.

[shadow_scholar]

Sasquatch BTL dealer. You don't speak, instead you just sign, but the character doesn't know sign language, so they try to communicate, but it doesn't always go so well. Yeah, they could just write stuff down, but what fun is that? So miscommunication happens and the character sometimes gets these weirdo, off the wall BTLs, like back-in-the-womb recreations or nude skydiving into a thunderstorm, instead of normal stuff like sensory loops or standard personafixes.

[Lady Door]

The flaming, flamboyant gay weapons dealer at the crime mall. His name is PJ Manning. EVERY time I have to deal with him I end up laughing myself into near tears.

[fistandantilus4....]

[SpasticTeapot]

Out of sheer niceness, I gave one of my PCs the owner of a surplus electronics store as a contact. Why is he so great? Simple: He can identify and fix all of the goodies that the runners pull out of places.

[Cynic project]

Manager in the PG&e repair and trouble shooting department. Think of all the mishaps and naughtiness one can do when there happens to be no power in a given area.

[RangerJoe]

I tend to give "Mom" of "Mom's Diner" on I-5 as a fre contact to my players. Don't mess with Mom. Don't get her place dirty. Don't come in if you're still bleeding. Have a piece of pie.

[Modesitt]

Somewhat odd contacts my Face currently has -

-Pop singer
-Cremator

[ Spoiler ]

Cremator: They call him Charlie. Charlie is creepy. And scares people. A lot. He's not 'A legitimate person that does work for runners on the side', he's a bad person who does legitimate work sometimes. He runs a crematoria and is happy to cremate whatever you bring him for a price. He doesn't cremate all of someone though, he has a box that is very carefully hidden that has a bone from every person he has ever cremated(but he doesn't tell anyone this). His front desk's bell you ring to get attention is a real human skull with a bell in it. You must tap the skull to get assistance. He really will just stand there and stare at you for hours until you tap the skull.

-Used car dealer
-Mask maker
-Veterinarian/Taxidermist

[ Spoiler ]

They call him...Tim. Actually, his name is Daniel but he has everyone call him Tim because he hates being called Dan. He's a vet by trade, but he quit after losing a friend to a hellhound. He had the dog shot and stuffed, leading to his new vocation - Taxidermy. He stuffs things for a living and is perfectly ok with stuffing people too.

-Wigmaker

[ Spoiler ]

Wigmaker: While most of Willy's services are for people who have lost their hair, he can also manufacture wigs for the purposes of disguises. Indeed, he does so for a price. Best results are achieved with a hair sample and multiple photos from many angles, especially for those with 'messy' hairstyles. He's a furry and has had plastic surgery to make him look more and more like a cat.

[pragma]

A recently played face in a group I GM for has a number of exceptional contacts including (but not limited to):

A professional forger who operates out of a business card supply store. The contacti himself is fairly bland (as far as someone who is never seen by his custormers can be considered bland), but the fact that my players have dropped as much money on business cards as they have on fake IDs is priceless.

Four professional hookers. Topping the previous record of two for this thread.

[Angelone]

The icecream man, think about it drives around all day, noone pays too much attention, plus he can get all the kids in the neighborhood to act as lookouts.

EDIT- Also a lawyer be handy just in case. Be funny to see the look on your GM's face when you announce you're going to sue a Corp. because you got shot up on a run against them.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Except for that whole pesky niggling Extraterritoriality thing, that'd be perfect, Angelone. :)

[blakkie]

[toturi]

AJ, the ex-oil driller turned astronaut who saved the world and doesn't pay taxes.

[Angelone]

Corps. have some kind of responsibility or the world would be wrse than it is. They aren't allowed to just dump radioactive wastes ect. I think you could possibly sue one even if you had to go through the CC.

[Bandwidthoracle]

My players have had:
Real-estate broker (Makes it easy to move a lot)
Delivery Boy (Doesn't look suspicious when he does things around town)
Antiques Dealer (Can fence bizzare things)
Collage Professor (No one knows magic theory like the guy with the doctorate in Thaumolgy)
Otaku info broker (Only contact to schedule a meeting at chucky cheese's, very disturbed child, belives he is a norse god)
Network Admin for a large research company (Nothing like having a friend who can get you a compile farm)

These are the best ones from our group.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Been watching Armageddon much, eh? :)

[Bandwidthoracle]

[Angelone]

I'm talking about the UCAS and CAS. Sorry I wasn't clear, but those two countries have laws in place to protect against blatent pollution, I remember in one of the books(BBB?) Shiawise got smacked because it was just dumping wastes in rivers and burying it in an unsafe manner so it was gettng into the groundwater.

Corps. are only governments inside of corp. property. You could possibly do a damn fine frame up job with a corp uniform and a TV crew. Have a buddy in the uniform beat the snot out of you outside of corp. property with the uniform on, while your on camera, and presto. The resulting lawsuit settlement could make you millions. You'd have to get your buddy into the corp system though, or Phys. Mask him as someone who is.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

[Edward]

My understanding is that a corp can legally dump any watt hay want on there own extraterritorial land. If it leaks but dose not leave there land there still doing nothing wrong but if it seeps outside of there land then they can be prosecuted. Of cause proving such a case is all but imposable.

Edward

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Depends on which venue you're suing them in.