Just read this on the BBC.

Interesting plot hook. Bodyguards hired to protect an archeologist from looters he helped convict. Throw in some bad juju magic from the ancient grave site and you got yourself a run....

needs fleshing, somebody make up some key NPCs and encounters for it and I'll happily give it a try

A team would get paid a significant amount of money, provided they keep the archaeologist(s) alive long enough to retreive the treasures hidden within the temple and get back to the transport.

Accompanying the group would be a historian who seems a little "off," who will ramble on about curses and hauntings to anyone who will listen. If the team is smart, they'll listen, although the rumors will be littered with so much jargon, they'll only get the jist of it.

The Jist, one they should all hope to abide by, is that they should prevent any death while in the palace or in the palace's courtyard.

The specifics here are slightly off- especially to this uninformed historian. As it turns out, if any blood is spilled on the ground, a number of the dead bodies will rise up from the mass graves. While the bodies are ghastly and frightening, they essentially harmless. Imagine Zombies who don't want brains.

This might be enough to dissuade the team from continuing, but of course no payout. Should they decide to press on, they will get cut by the other edge of this sword.

Miles away is the resting place of the murderers of these walking dead. They make their approach towards the palace. Their walk is just long enough for the team to get well inside the palace, where they encounter a maze/traps/monster/what have you.

When they exit the palace, they find the walking bodies are reliving their executions by the hands of more active, significantly more violent zombies. These angry zombies also do not want brains, however they certainly wouldn't mind executing the modern shadowrun team along with some ancient victims.

This could go one of a few ways, depending on the team:

1. Shoot them and keep shooting them.
2. Sprint for the transport AFAF (as fast as ...) trying to outrun the zombies.
3. Some mythical item retreived inside the palace is the key to stopping them.

Stopping the zombies and saving the zombie victims could potentially release the unresting souls of the victims. As haunting as the departing words might be, they could bestow a blessing on the team, granting them some permanent (yet non-game unbalancing) gift such as: the ability to read/speak fluent Mayan, Danger Sense exclusive to zombies, or perhaps a favor from them (along the lines of Spirit of Man.)

Just what I came up with.

Zombies are always nice

That rules the most ever. Nice job!

I tend to use RL news now & then as a hook for a mission

For example:

In one of the segments of the Rhapsody arc, the London bombings of last summer inspired a major plot hook. In the scenario, three high explosive devices were detonated in a coordinated effort in various parts of the city. One in the trendy Camdentown neighbourhood, the second at the Charing's Cross Deep Tube station and the third in the financial district. There was also a fourth device in a lorry outside Royal Albert Hall. which malfunctioned.

Instead of radical terrorists, the party responsible was covert arm of a legitimate government. Since the girl the runner team was protecting was a former member of a Croatian resistance cell, it made for some very interesting scenes as well as theories about who might have been responsible. In the end, the team took the hook and ran with it. setting some interesting political wheels in motion, and adding a new level of intrigue to the campaign.

I dunno, wouldn't it be easier just to cut someone's arm, and have all the zombies dig them selves out, then sitting around for months trying to dig them out one by one? Just have a voodoun handy.

I saw this a few days ago and had the same thoughts. murder. archeology and relic hunters, displaced drug dealers, that's real life. For the game maybe add in jelous professional rivals who want the glory or fear your discovery will up set their reputations and maybe, just maybe, a mystic tie as to the ritual murders and why the city was abandoned instead of maintained.

I mean rsally the jewels were still on the bodies? Anyone else thinking Boris Karloff here?

I still hesitate to integrate too much RL-type news into my games because last time I did, it involved a massive bomb in Europe. Normally this would be no biggy, but it was two weeks BEFORE that bombing in Spain happened IRL! I got a little freaked after that, especially since it was the third time major world events seemed to mirror my campaign instead of vice-versa.

Just reading the news and saw that one of the dogs from the dog show was missing.

This had me thinking of a silly run for players... doing something for the 20XX Westminster Dog Show. People from all over the UCAS, and/or CAS, and/or NAN, where jealousy and other things can arise. That Ares exec with his prize rottweiler? yeah, the exec from Mitsuhama wants it out of the competition... What is the secret ingredient used by that trainer? And don't forget, there's probably an awakened breed section too possibly. Hell chihuahuas? ok, ok, I'm just being silly now... But Devil chihuahuas might be more plausible...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060222/ap_on_...tain_bank_heist

This I just read, news about a bank heist in Britain. Only a couple million worth take...

That's an exceptional take for a heist. Unlike in movies, bank heists (which this was not, by the way) tend to go for a lot less. That no one got hurt and the heist seems to have left the police with no leads is also pretty unusual.

I'm kind of surprised. Isn't Britain supposed to be wired with cameras everywhere?

I was being sarcastic, hence I said 'only'. I'm very very impressed by the amount and how they got away with no one being hurt and little leads.

Yes, Britain has a bunch of cameras set up but that's only in the city and I imagine you can only have so many cameras out there. Plus, maybe they did get it on film somewhere, but they have to examine all the hours/time unless they knew the exact time frame to specifically look for.

The mayan mission is on top of my list now. This sounds great. It sounds even more fun for me because i am a huge history buff. Ancient ruins, here i come.

I think i am going to throw in some locals who tell them all sorts of scary tales that have nothing to do with the mission. Feathered serpants and panther men anyone?

I was in London in 2000. We were playing tourist when over the radio in a hsop near Buckingham Palace were heard there had been an attmept to steel $100 million in diamonds form the Milenium dome. My husband looked ta me and asked "Do you know where all your friends are?"
I looked back and asked "On which side?"

I had a friend in Paris, a former green beret, on the night princess Dianna died.

Apparently Alistair Cooke got caught up in an organlegging ring... as one (or more) of the organs.