(Dumpshock drinking game: take a shot every time you read the word "marketing" in this post. Mad whuffies if you make it all the way to the end without falling out of your chair.)

N.B.:Please see this thread for background on this plot's gestation. My thanks to everyone who participated in that discussion for their help, creativity and insight. Even if I didn't incorporate your suggestion, I appreciate your input.

First, a quote from a post I wrote on July 30th:

In my game, one of Deus' plans is marketing: Deus 'converted' a few high-level Renraku marketing execs and implanted an idea in their heads for a new campaign. For the last few months, there's been a special deal available at arcology cyberware clinics: 30% off your first installation of alpha-grade headware. That's right: come on in to the SCIRE in downtown Seattle, walk in to any of their fine clinics, pick out the top-of-the-line piece of 'ware you want (memory, senseware, a phone, whatever) and have the implantation surgery done on the spot... and SAVE 30% OFF REGULAR RETAIL PRICE.

In my game, Deus has been implanting his special packages (Invoked Memory Stimulators, BTL Simulators, etc.) in most customers who come in for this special deal. The marketing blitz has been going on for months and hundreds of people are signing up for it.

Deus has decided to expand and accelerate his marketing campaign by introducing viral elements. For those of you who aren't familiar with "viral marketing" (a contemporary term), a good breakdown of the principles can be found here. In a nutshell, it (and I'm quoting the site here) "describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence." Basically a viral campaign is one that enlists the consumer in the marketing effort. It's brilliant and can be tremendously effective (Hotmail uses this strategy, for instance).

Now, in the 21st century marketing has probably iterated to an unrecognizable form and that's fine: I'm not a Business major and I have no interest in theorizing about the nuts and bolts of advertising in 2054 (though y'all are welcome to bounce ideas around if you like). Suffice to say that Deus wants to ramp up his efforts and with this goal in mind has targeted a marketing guru for extraction from a corporate facility:

Antonio Grandin is a magician who does advanced R&D on advertising and market penetration for Aztechnology. The Saotome corporation, a major Yamatetsu subsidiary and operator of the world-famous Saotome Aquadome, has leased Grandin and his Research Assitant for an extended consultancy.

Grandin, his RA and a small staff of Saotome researchers are working on adapting metafaunal telepathic and empathic powers to support and enhance marketing campaigns. To this end, they have several spirit types and Awakened animals in the lab. Creatures with the following powers are favourites, for obvious reasons: Compulsion, Confusion, Desire Reflection, Glamour, Hypnotic Song, Influence and Possession.

Recently, Grandin has achieved some success with nomads: their ability to self-replicate and lay dormant within a host for long periods has made them useful subjects for study. Since one of the most interesting and potentially useful aspects of the nomad--its uncanny ability to duplicate itself--is also one of the most threatening, Grandin took steps to suppress this power using [insert highly abstract technomagical technique here]. Unfortunately, his approach worked too well.

The nomad being directly studied was allowed to grow, but not permitted to 'split,' as nomads do when they reach a certain Force. As a result, the nomad has become changed, transformed into a unique spirit with unknown abilities and a serious hate-on for its tormentor: Grandin.

You can probably see where this is going.

The PCs are hired to break into the aquadome, extract Grandin and return him to the Johnson (an agent of Deus). Of course, things in the aquadome have gone horribly awry. When the PCs do begin their run, they quickly realize that the entire facility has shut down: Nomads (which can breed fairly quickly) have spread across the dome's population and are wreaking havoc. Now the characters have to find their target and get him out while fending off the attacks of his Jaguar Guard entourage, possessed (and therefore innocent!) civilians, loose Nomads (which can hit Force 17!), the Free-Spirit-which-was-once-a-nomad and any other paracritters from Grandin's experiments the GM feels like throwing in there.

The idea is to replicate some of the conditions of the arcology: a closed community--a supposedly "safe" environment--which turns against its inhabitants and becomes a deathtrap.

What do you think? Criticisms, compliments, suggestions?

For the record, you can check out the stats for nomads and other paracritters here.

Don't forget to have the zombies chanting the benefits of Aztech hair care products (or whatever)

This will also allow your pcs to 'talk their way through the zombies' by appearing to be 'one of the converted' (e.g. they know all the marketing slogans)

What I'm wondering is if this ubber nomad would make a good long-term concact for the PCs. Of course, I tend to think insane thoughts like that. Is this just going to be a nomad on vitamins with a grudge or will this be a fully devolped spirit that is capible of being dealt and reasoned with?

hyzmarca sez:
What I'm wondering is if this ubber nomad would make a good long-term concact for the PCs. Of course, I tend to think insane thoughts like that. Is this just going to be a nomad on vitamins with a grudge or will this be a fully devolped spirit that is capible of being dealt and reasoned with?

Good question. I'm thinking that things will be much more interesting if the nomad has "evolved" into something with an actual intelligence and motives, so yeah--it could potentially be reasoned with. It is still a nomad though, so it's malevolent, and vicious... but it's probably starting to develop a larger purpose than simply: "Possess. Kill. Rinse. Repeat."

There's definitely potential for a recurring villain here, especially if one accepts the fact that nomads are basically small Horrors...

Simons last words do suggest that he is a supernatural entity rather than a facet of Mary's personality. "I live in the weak and the wounded". One could interperate as the boss being possessed by a mellovant spirit. Simon as a nomad-like demon is what I got out of it.
However, as homocidal possessing spirit horror goes, I prefer Fallen. Azazel just has a great personality.

I'm not sure yet how, exactly, the nomad becomes... well, whatever it becomes. Tell me what you think of this:

I'm thinking that when its regular life-cycle is disrupted and it falls under the enchantment of whatever arcane metamagical technique is used to contain it, that's when it begins to transform.

(If you're not familiar with the nomad, it's an Essence-draining creature which adds consumed Essence to its Force. The second it reaches Force 18, it splits into two Force 9 nomads and they each go off to drain Essence and cause havoc. Hence, it's not possible to have a Force 18 nomad--it splits immediately.)

This particular nomad was artifically kept at Force 18 and when its containment field broke, it lunged out at the nearest target: Antonio Grandin. The act of possessing Grandin, an Initiated Mage, was the 'X Factor' that served as a catalyst to turn the nomad into a Free Spirit.

What say?

Okay, so I have a problem: the narrative that I've sketched out in my head results in a Force 18 nomad which, upon becoming a Free Spirit, will look something like this:

B: 15
Q: 12 (x3)
S: N/A

C: 15
I: 15
W: 15

E: 18
R: 14

Initiative: 22 + 1D6

Spirit Energy: 1

Compulsion (special: homicidal mania)
Essence Drain (modified)
Immunity (Normal Weapons)
Materialization
Possession

1D3 Spirit Powers (I'm thinking Aura Masking, Hidden Life and Personal Domain are all appropriate, although Personal Domain might be excessive...)

Does anyone else think this is a a little too ? For the record, the group I'm designing this for is a samurai, a penetration decker and a shaman -- each about 160 Karma.

If they fight this monster they will die. That is for certain. Only navel scale weaponry or Wallhacker weilding elemental spurs can hope to defeat it. However, the question you must ask is will your runners fight it. Will the story force a confrontation? Will the players try to defeat it? If the answer to either of these questions is yes your runners are dead, they just don't know it yet. If the answer is no, then you have a truely frightening villain. If the don't mind running for their lives and potentially selling their souls to this thing if it comes to that, then I say go for it.

Hidden life would be useful if you tone it down or if your PCs are somehow powerful enough to defeat it. It would allow the creature to survive defeat. However, if not it just rubs salt into the wounds. ubbing salt in the wound can be good for storytelling, especially if it hides its life in one of the players, eventually driving the PC to feed it of his or her own free will.

Banishing a Force 18 (effective 19) is "possible" for a grade 3 initiate... but about as likely as sniping a great dragon with a pistol.

You're looking at, for the nomad, 19 dice, target 9. For the initiate.... howevermany dice, target 19. Really, really low odds.

Then again, at that type of force, it wouldn't really be banished. And it won't get any easier in the off chance the first round succeeds really. We're talking a lot of karma burned to be able to pull it off.

Well, if you don't want the thinkg to slaughter the team outright you may give it a weakness that prevents it from engaging them. Virtual essence loss very combat turn while materialized due to the fact that it is too powerful to exist on the physical plane in this mana level would limit it to astral most of the time. This would also fit with what we know about very powerful spirits and powerful named horrors. A metal elemental or equivilant would simply suffocate for lack of mana if it tried to materialize in any time except the peak of the mana cycle. If you rule that elemental manipulations count of magic attacks for the purpose of damaging spirits then the Shaman could get lucky with one while it is on the physical plane. If you rule them to be a magically powered physical attack then they are out of luck even there. Force 18 manipulations are rare. The TN for standard combat spells would simply be too high to reliably cause damage. Although, one could get a lucky roll and/or burn some karma.

How about givng it the unique ability to spawn an unnamed servitor Nomads at the cost of its force and at will. It could go with the classic force 9 at 18, it could wait and spawn one or two force 9s at 27, it could create a small army of force 1s, or anything in between. It cannot spawn a servitor with a force greater than 9 at any time.

Servitors have all of the powers of Nomads and also have the Mind Link power, connecting them to their creator. They can be used as a ritual link back to it and can travel to its location through the metaplanes as a complex action. Likewise, it can use the metaplanes to travel to any servitor's location. It can cut the link between itself and a servitor as a free action at any time. If this is done the servitor instantly becomes a normal Nomad and is lost to its creator forever.

Restrict it in that its own force cannot drop below 9. This would prevent it from going too overboard when it is on the fence. To make things easier on the crew, the total force of its servitors cannot be greater than twice its own force. If the force of its servitors exceeds its current force the most powerful one automaticly goes out of control and becomes a normal Nomad.

It can elevate one of its "children" to "free" status by performing spending 9 points of spirit energy and performing an exlusive naming ritual with a TN of 25-(Servitor's Force). The naming itself only takes five minutes to perform, however the Spirit Energy is lost even if the ritual fails. This ritual can only be applied to Servitor Nomads. It cannot be used on any other spirit, not even an uncontroled former servitor.
It is unlikely to make use of this ritual on any but its most beloved and loyal spawn. Both the cost in spirit energy and the risk of having another Named Nomad around are to great.

Servitors cannot gain a force greater than 17. If they attempt to drain essence beyond that they much make Force test against a TN equal to the Force of their creator. Should the servitor succeed in this test it drains a single point of essence from its final victim and ceases to exist, dying as it give asexual birth to two normal nomads.

At the time of its introduction, the Nomad has 8+1d6 Force points worth of servitors, explaining why it only has a force of 9.