Hi,
this is a question I already postet in the Halloween run thread, but some more popped up in my head and I don't want to hijack the thread too much.

1) I am planning on running an extraction of a mafia child that has joined a witch cult. This cult is performing a ritual on halloween to summon a nasty spirit. I want this ritual to take place in a location that has traditional ties to witchcraft IRL. The runners are based in Seattle, so it should not be too far away from the sprawl.

2) The shaman leading the cult is an elven moon shaman from the ADL. What would typical spells for this kind of NPC be? I already have some ideas but am looking for more.

3) I am having some trouble making the connection to the witch cult which is supposed to be a bit more complex than "mafia guy says his kid is in this cult, so get it back and nuke the cult". My first ideas involve the Halloweeners, but I am a bit stuck there. Any ideas?

4) Any more ideas for interesting bits to spice up the run? The plot is supposed to slowly unfold from "typical extraction of a rich kid" to "weird cult summons free spirit and hell breaks loose".

tbd

Err? What sort of "witch cult" is this?

Hi,
maybe the word choice is a bit unlucky, its just supposed to be a group (20-30 people) who engage is occult rituals and similar things based on Wicca (as described in Magic in the Shadows).

tbd

Oh look, one of the people I was thinking of saw your stuff the same tiume I did. but not unexpectedly she was more polite.

Hi,
the word "child" was, again, very unlucky. I was talking about the son of a mafia member, aged about 20, who simply is attracted to these kinds of things. I am sorry if I offended anyone, it was purely unintentional.

tbd

Witches (Wiccans) are well known for being completely anti-violence, so you might want to reconsider your plot. It would be better to say: Angsty teenager (who happens to be a mafioso's son) joins cult of gothic angsty teenagers with no real power, but for some relly, really far fetched reason, there is a HUGE mana spike just as they are "summoning" something, so a spirit really does show up. And with no one possessing real magical talent. The thing goes on a rampage (please have it kill all the angsty teenagers).

Heh. Let me put it to you this way: Wiccans wouldn't summon nasty spirits, not unless you went the extreme route of them being shamanic, and the Avenger-type of the toxic shaman. And that's pretty extreme, indeed.

Wiccans tend to call themselves witches, but not all witches are Wiccan. (If that confuses you, then let me make a substitution: squares are rectangles, but rectangles are not squares. ) You could have witches that follow a kind of "black magic" path, maybe who draw upon all the nasty things the Inquistion accused witches of (a good source to check would be the Malleus Maleficarum), but they wouldn't be Wiccan.

Hi,
today must be a very bad day for me, "nasty" obviously is understood differently from what I wanted to say by it.
First, I would like to stress that in my shadowrun games, there is no good or evil, so this "cult" would not be either of them, just like corporations, the police, and gangs are neither good nor evil.
The "cult" (in lack of a better word right now) simply wants to summon a free spirit to be their "leader", or mentor. The son (age ~20) of a mafia member joins this group because he is interested in this topic.
His father is worried and hires the shadowrunners to get his son back, against the son's will. So the "cult" tries to get one of their members, the son, who joined by free will, back and succeeds in this attempt. Later, the spirit is summoned and has some strong powers, so is in this sense "nasty" from the runners' point of view as they have to deal with it.
Again, sorry for causing misunderstandings.

tbd

If you want 'em to be evil, just go with Satanists or a group of Adversary shamen, etc. You should be able to come up with something that doesn't step on any toes. You could make the mafioso a late bloomer with some arcane talent (conjuration, maybe?). What most people call witchcraft tends to be either Satansim or corrupted Voodoo or the like.

Hmm. Put that way, why not have the coven of witches attempt to summon the Wild Hunt? If you have the Target: UCAS sourcebook, there's a few comments that imply that one coven did exactly that.

The Wild Hunt is pretty powerful, and could easily run amok over any magician who, even if he were able to summon them, didn't have the skill to control them. I believe there's information on The Wild Hunt in Magic in the Shadows.

Assuming you go that route, I can try to answer your questions.

1.) Seattle doesn't have many, if any, ties to witchcraft that I know of. Maybe there's someone from Seattle on the boards who could tell you. With that in mind, you could relocate the team to an East Coast sprawl. Many of the cities that had been around since the days of the original colonies had some places that were at least rumored to be involved in "witches" and "witchcraft." You could use Salem, but that's the obvious and clichéd route. (Could still work if you don't mind that. Just saying.)

2.) Well, anything that Moon shamans might get bonuses for would be a good start. Anything else, I think, is up to you and what sort of personality you see this Moon shaman having.

3.) I'm not sure I understand what you're wanting, here. Does there really need to be anything more complicated than the kid simply getting interested in and joining this cult or coven?

If you wanted, I guess you could throw in a red herring. Say that this kid, who'd been going to college, has now been missing for about a week. There's some circumstantial evidence that he may have been involved with a gang -- his now ex-girlfriend was a ganger -- but otherwise, no one's sure where he may have gone. A few close friends might mention that now and then, he'd skip out on going to the movies or parties with them, saying that he had "important stuff to do" every other Saturday night. You could run with it from there.

Hi,
about the Moon totem: as I got Wicca and black magic wrong, I will need to redo that totem as well. As least I learned something today.
About 3): How the kid got into the group (is "cult" an appropriate word or not? If not, what is?) is basically just like you described it. However, I want the runners to work a bit to find everything out they need to know to track the group. All I am looking for is some inspiration for original bits.
I changed the direction of the group from Wicca to black magic as a start, but the group is in no way good or evil, the run is simply driven by opposing interests of the involved parties (getting the mafioso's son back vs. defending members of the group).

tbd

Point One: I've no intention of disrespecting anybody's religious/social belief structure.

Right... that out of the way, here's the juice:

It's entirely possible that a group of "witches" will be summoning a "nasty spirit" in TBD's game. Note that this has nothing to do with Wicca, paganism or plastic forks. It's all in perception.

Jesus, this is the same post I seem to make on every magic thread... oh well, here goes:

Right from when I got SR2, I saw that the magic system is all about how the magic users perceive the forces they control. You can have shamen, hermetics, voudoun priests, idoliters, whatever. It's entirely possible that TBD's "Mafia Kid" has fallen in with a group that practices a perculiar type of their own.

Idea: Kid (I'll call her X) became friendly with a non-family member (we'll call her Y). Y introduced X to her friends - a bunch of adolescent-to-early-adults who have a strong interest in the occult. They are "led" by an individual - the centre of the "coven" - who is actually magically awakened. None of the others are. Problem is, that the head honcho is a twisted practitioner of whatever art he's emulating - in this case Wicca - who bases everything on a perculiar Pop-Culture interpretation of reality.

According to the head honcho, you need to have a "circle" to practice magic. He needs his little cult of people - considder it a Geas. He also thinks they need to practice human sacrifice or the Devil won't like it and smite them.

Now, you, me and my great aunt Fanny all know that Wicca has FA to do with Devil Worship, sacrificing virgins or black mass. This idiot, however, only knows what he saw on really badly remastered Christopher Lee films, translated onto the Trid. He's screwed in the head. But he still thinks he's a Witch. Or Warlock. Or Barney the Dinosaur or whatever.

See where I'm going with this? If you can have teh metaplane of Swiss Cheese, you can have an idiot pseudo pretend witch with a jones for Wheedon-esque over teen-pop sh1te.

Phew...

Breathe...

Just because someone claims to be a witch doesn't make them a Wiccan. Just like claiming to be Christian doesn't, by default, make you Catholic.

A more graphic analogy: all poodles are dogs, but not all dogs are poodles.

Sorry to be so hyper-exact this morning. It's gonna be one of those days.

-Siege

When the Politically COrrect people leave, turn to Target: UCAS and base your group on the Witches of Salem. Better yet, have 'e summon the Wild Hunt and scare the Hell out of your players.!

DB I think it's the way it was pharsed: "witches" and "Halloween ritual."

It wasn't like he'd asked for suggestions for a group of evil mages. He's taking about witchs and rituals on their most sacred day(night?) and a child taken up. I know from SF that's an awful lot of BS in prejudices she has to face. It would be like someone asking for details on Catholci communion, in the thread title, then going on to say the priest will be sodomizing a 3 year old. Clearly this has little to the real practice of Christianity but is part of the GM's gaming ideas, but if asking for help, it is good to not tread on the toes of the people most likely to be able to give you an answer.

Quite right. That was my answer, though, from a practising Agnostic. What I'm practicing for, though, nobody knows...

Remember that TBD's first language isn't English, however - give him some latitude. I realise that what he said was potentially offensive, but he's probably operating from almost as much of a pop culture base as the characters in my example. Indeed, there are people in the world that don't even know that Wicca is real - they see it purely in terms of the movies... and green hags at "Haloween."

Regarding Seattle-area locations for that have a traditional link to "witchcraft" (in whatever form you want) IRL...

Since it's 2060 or so, "traditional" only needs to reach back to say the 1960s, by which time there were small covens and solitaries all over America. Not many, but there were some, and such a person could easily have gone on to raise their children in Crowley-type traditions, Celtic-inspired stuff, or any kind of modern neo-pagan hybrid faith.

Aside from that, I'll note that there are plenty of magick-practicing groups around Portland, OR where I went to school. A good proportion of them have primarily Celtic influences, and another large group has primarily Native American influences (although these are still Caucasians co-opting the culture, that I'm familiar with).

If you want to just play games with names, the capital of Oregon is Salem, named after the Massachussets location. It has almost nothing to do with the activities of Salem, MA, but some people could think it did.

If you're not too picky with it being Wiccan or neo-pagan, but just want a place where magic and ritual has been practiced for many centuries, use one of the big mountains in the area. Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Ranier, and Mt. Hood have all been venerated by local tribes, and I know for a fact that some people still go up to the Mt. St. Helens area for shamanic rituals. Also, the Yakima nation near Walla Walla, WA and George, WA (yes, really) have some sacred lodges on the Columbia Gorge. That's a nice setting. This would all be NAN stuff in SR, obviously.

--K

Adopt my philosophy: become a practicing hedonist.

As for being politically correct, I don't know how well that applies since I'm fond of referring to Priests as "Frocking Pedophiles".

However, being specific helps narrow down the issues at hand: once Ting understood that traditional Wiccans didn't fit his image of a magical cult, he was able to re-think the plot device.

-Siege

For a real-life example of how far whack-job wannabe witches can twist the idea of "Wicca", check this out.

Sorry Munchkin -- how exactly would you care to cast Satanists in a more PC light?

"Worshippers of an alternative faith?" Certainly.

"People who worship a figure that embodies 'Evil' for another faith?" Sure. (or Republicans)

-Siege

It just so happens that I know a number of Satanics, and all of them are good people (if a bit rude.) Hell (pun not intended), I even have some LeVey on my bookshelf.

Although I've never met a Satanist, and don't know what they "believe" I think it sounds a lot more reasonable than Catholicism.

Think about it:

God created everything. God is infallible. Therefore god created all the shit that goes wrong. He/She sits in heaven spoiling with everlasting glory those who have chosen to live by Gods decree when alive.

Lucifer, on the other hand, although he was an angel and thus created by (Mr Infallible) God, resides in hell (probably not a nice place even for him - self sacrifice) doing a crappy job (punishing evildoers for all eternity) and is given zero respect for that. Why? He's like a prison warden, with a touch of torturer thrown in for good measure. He seems, to me, to be doing a "better" or at least more useful job than ol' General Officer Demanding...


Just my early morning ramblings...

Keep it on Shadowrun. If you want to continue to discuss religious concepts outside of the game, you'll need to take it to private messages or email.

Sorry - running off at the mouth since the topic seemed to go that direction.

But to get back to the game, as you said, this "off-topicy" bit gave me an idea:

I have already opined that all magic is based entirely upon the perceptions of the weilder. That being the case, my above dissertation on the relative merits of G & D could make for quite an interesting plot line.

Picture this: The runners are hired by a Johnson who is actually from the order of St Sylvester - the Order of the Vatican dealing expressly with magical matters. They want the runners to track down and either kill or capture an individual who they describe as a Satanist - a "monster" who "worships the prince of lies."

That's all well and good, until the runners discover that the individual in question percieves Catholicism's Lucifer as an epitome of Justice - punishing the wicked wrongdoers. A vigilante, if you will, damning those who do not live up to the requirements of uni-christian dogma. What do they do then? He's not evil, he's just the same as any Avenger type.

I suppose that this idea would work fairly well as an explanation of the Avenger mindset as expressed through a religious magical style - all those instances in MitS of people focusing their magic through their beliefs in <insert religion here> come together quite nicely here in this example - "The Lucifer Totem" would be an avenger variation of a "Michael Totem"


Next idea: I have my shamanic PhysAd, I have my Archangelic Totem, how do I get my wings and halo? Surge effect for the wings, Knack Illusion power for the halo and a very large weapon focus with a flame aura quickened to it for the fiery wrath of the almighty. Sounds cool to me...

Yeah, see --> that's what we in the biz call a "distinctive feature."

If you're nervy, try and trademark the likeness.

Putting up wanted posters would just be adding insult to injury.

-Siege

Granted, there has to be a law irl against it, but:

If you trademark your likeness and then commit lots of heinous crimes for fun and profit, anyone printing your likeness on wanted posters would have to pay you a royalty.

Not only did you screw them, but now they're paying you for it.

-Siege

To find a green place in the seattle plex is fairly easy. You've got Ft Lewis in the south where they say lots of shamans have the lodges. THe hills in auburn(I think it is) and in the north the agrofarms of Snohomish.(god knows how that's spelled.)
They don't have to own land there, but maybe they move into a secluded field for the ritual. like guys who faked crop circles.

Okay, how 'bout this: Don't use a traditional witch spot, use a place of power for native americans. I was also thinkin':

The mafia daddy hires the runners to snatch his kid from a cult of evil witches who are trying to summon a spirit of much badness, possibly using the mafia kid as a human sacrifice. The runners accept and find the cult. Then they find out that the witches aren't evil and aren't trying to hurt anybody. The mafia kid came of his own free will because he has recently discovered that he will goblinize. Rare in 2063, but it happens. Since this whole experience can really suck, he sought out the witches to help ease his transition with various magicks that they know.

Mafia daddy knew this all along, but he is a major league racist. So he hires some unprincipled street punks (the PCs) to nuke these meta-loving scumbags. He truly hopes to get his kid back alive, but the shame of having a metahuman kid would cause him to lock the kid in the attic forever (or something like that), so if the kid buys the farm he won't be too upset. "Yeah it's unfortunate that little Johnny had to die, but he'd be a freak anyway."

This can give the PCs some powerful magical allies (the witches), or enemies if they go in all Dirty Harry and start waxin' people. It can also start off adventures that involve the mafia (or being on the wrong side of the mafia) and human-supremacists.

Lemme apologize collectively for all of us who ignored you original question and decided to discuss semantics and theology instead. We all kinda dropped the ball on that one. Sorry.

Instead of Goblinize, how about fledgling shaman? Eagle? Who doesn't approve of Dad's enterprise?

Which means the magical group the kid turns to could be normal, happy-huggy people...or toxics.

Just another twist to screw with the players.

-Siege

P.S. I'm...erm...urrgh....aarghhh....sorr...grr...gasp...choke...rrry...

First, regarding Wicca: If there can be Christian cults (ala Waco) then there's nothing unlikely about a Wiccan 'witch cult'. Wiccans are not necessarily anti-violence - there was a moderately recent outcry that the US Army appointed a wiccan chaplain implying that there are Wiccan soldiers, pumping high velocity lead into someone you've never met falls under my heading of 'violent'. I admit that in Shadowrun this may instead fall under the heading of 'tuesday'. Also, while Wicca was created in the twentieth century the historical things it was based on are thought to have included a fair amount of human sacrifice (I even recall Pistons saying that she doesn't personally feel the need). Wiccans are about as likely to summon a 'nasty' spirit as anyone else, given above conditions and my cynicism about human nature. Therefore, the Wiccan Witch Cult is fine and has the added bonus of being easier to flesh out with in real-world background material. (Especially with DSF's resident mechanical components and arctic mammals.*)

If you do go though Satanist route, here's a few things I thought of: IIRC the Book of Job states/implies that Satan is actually a fully fledged servant of God and doing his will. A thought I read in a preview of Demon: The Fallen is that if God is omnipotent (or even close enough) then His creations could not be faulty or work against their given purpose, and if He is Omniscient then He would know that the rebellion would happen. Therefore, Lucifer's rebellion must have been part of His plan - God works in mysterious ways. Also, angels (including Lucifer) do not have free will, only humans were given free will. Evil in the world is said to be a product of such free will - with the supreme gift of being able to make their own choices, humanity naturally sometimes make bad ones. Not quite sure how you can use that but these things occurred as I was reading and writing. By the way, I believe there are at least two or three separate religions that call themselves Satanists - one of which is the 'dedicated to evil' form.

Now,

Questions (1) and (2) have been better answered by others.

(3) & (4) If you want a more complicated plot, what about the cult actually manipulated the kid into joining, although he believes it to have been his choice. Perhaps the cult wants leverage over the Mafia, entry into the organised crime market (a piece of the action), to control/take over/destroy the Mafia or something similar. It may even be personal history between the SR's employer and the cult. Maybe the cult is acting as a pawn of someone else, with or without the cult's knowledge - Yakuza or Triad? Tentacled Thing from beyond time and space wishing to feed from the Mafia and their actions? Whatever.

The mentor/leader spirit is going to achieve this by possessing the child - thereby guiding the cult and achieving the Mafia political stunt in the same stroke. More complications/complexity can be included by using several of these points simultaneously and have multiple factions in an (almost)-behind-the-scenes political power struggle (ie. multiple Mafia factions, Yakuza and Tentacled Monstrosity both separately manipulating the cult, the cult thinking it's working on its own, the Triads trying to get ahead while everyone else is distracted, celtic spirits or spirits of Tara/Dana (sorry I forget the name - true Wiccan spirits) interfering and so forth).

I like the Wild Hunt idea. Possibly separately from the leader spirit, as otherwise it makes little sense with my plot (at least, if they intended to summon the Wild Hunt as opposed to just getting it by mistake or the interferance of others).

* Sorry, I tend to sound like this when I have had little sleep.

Hi,
thanks a lot for all the constructive advice. Here's what I did with the plot, I am curious what your comments on that will be.

First off, as you may have noticed, I am in no way familiar with Wicca, Satanism or black magic. Neither is my group. So, I will leave the detailed definition of the cult's belief in the dark, no one would notice the difference anyhow.

The Plot:
Seattle's mafia world is dominated by the struggle for the position as the capo. One of the hotter candidate's son is enchanted by a mafia hermetic to be attracted to a cult that occupies most of his time and gets his undivided attention and loyalty. What nobody knows is that Bobby (the son) is about the Awaken as a physical adept, which has been triggered by the frequent exposure to magic in the cult's rituals (not all but some of the members are Awakened).
A few days before halloween the cult travels to the NAN to a site they believe to be a site of power, maybe even a spontaneous crossing of mana lines caused by the spiritual energy accumulated around halloween. Therefore Bobby has to vanish for a few days and does not tell his father where he will go, as all of his mind is fixed on the cult.
The runners are hired by the worried father who has no idea where his son might be to find Bobby and bring him back home. They find him at the site of the ritual and extract him there. The cult, convinced that Bobby joined by free will, tries to get him back and send a few spirits after the runners, which makes them crash in the wilderness (they will either travel by helicopter or van).
After a while, they reach a settlement of the Cascade Orks and have to some way sneak or buy their way into Seattle.
When they have returned, Bobby is reunited with his family and the mafia remembers the runners' names (in a good way).
A few days later, on Halloween eve, Bobby flees from his home and returns to the Cult, where the summoning of said free spirit takes place. He tells the cult the "evil shadowrunners who kidnapped him" and the cult seeks revenge. In addition, the mafioso rehires the runners as soon as he finds out his son is missing again. This time, it's personal and the cult "has to pay for kidnapping Bobby".

I am thinking of how to include the other familia that has enchanted Bobby, not sure on that one yet.

What do you think?

tbd