Okay this an opening place holder for this thread. We'll start with a meet and greet. The team has pulled a couple of jobs previously. Both for a Draco foundation Johnson.

Team is...

Vegas - The GM's favorite toy (details intentioally left blank)
Metatron - Wing - Mercenary thug details TBC
Mister Doormat - Dark Horse - Ex ganger
Adamu - Flat - astral adept
Pragma - JW - hacker
amra23 - Toobit - Dwarf combat mage

Okay, if this is a meet & greet, and since we have all worked together before, here is all the stuff y'all would know about my character - Flat.

Physical:
Human Male early 30s Caucasian
178 cm 80 kg (average)
close-cropped, slightly spiky (or just dishevelled) sandy hair
neat moustache/goatee
Fairly good-sized diamond nose stud
clothes are nothing fancy, but wears fairly nice olive green (lined) duster, button-downs and khakis. Black (AR) gloves.
Almost always wears (AR) shades, but every few seconds, at irregular intervals, they suddenly flash with a bright, colored light - different colors at random.
When he astrally perceives the glow is constant, and always shifting through the visible color spectrum.
At some time or another you all would have seen him without his shades, and know that the source of the glow is a brightly-glowing pair of nanite tats, one on each eyelid. So whenever he blinks or closes his eyes, the eyes glow - the colors cycle through the spectrum.
The tattoos are of Egyption heiroglyphic eyes.

When working, he carries a katana on his back, under the lined coat (not very concealed at all, but slightly less obvious), the hilt sticking up behind his neck.

Icon (which you all would have seen during any regular commcalls) is stylized version of Flat's own appearance, with the long coat exaggeratedly sweeping around when he moves, the Katana on the OUTSIDE of the coat on his back, and the shades strobing in different colors just like they do in real life, only the glow is brighter.

Personal circumstances:
You know he lives in his car - a beat up old Mercury Comet littered with fast-food containers, his clothes, and other personal crap.
We have made good money working together, and you have no idea where Flat's share goes.
You have no idea who any of his friends or contacts are, if he even has any - with the possible exception of his fixer - a mid-level operator named Bustacap, an orxploitation-crazed ork.

Demeanor:
It doesn't take long to see where he got his name - professional detachment would be too generous a word - this guy is a freaking Vulcan. Never shows a hint of emotion - almost like he's TRYING not to feel anything.
Otherwise, polite and professional. Can turn on the right demeanor as the situation requires - he's by not by any means socially challenged - it's just that when on his own time he doesn't really emote at all.
He will not have formed close personal relationships with anyone on the team.

Runner skills:
His specialty is investigation - especially Astral. He is a very gifted assensor and psyhcometrician - he can get a detailed read off of almost any place or object or person. He seems to be able to sense the Astral even when he does not seem to be Perceiving.
He is also a capable fighter in the Astral, although he cannot Project, only Perceive.
No combat monster at all, but definitely able to hold his own in a Physical World fight. Uses his katana, which is clearly magical, as well as an Ares Predator. Mutters a steady stream of Latin while fighting.

This is Wing:

An early 20-something ork of Chinese descent. She is 5' 9 and well built. She wears her long black hair mostly in a plait when working, but occasionally in two buns on the top of her head.
She wears mostly dark colours of clothing, with tend to be along the lines of combat trousers, and a t-shirt with her lined coat. On the job, you know she wears her armoured jacket in preference to her lined coat.

She is fairly amenable and friendly, although can be a little gruff at times. If you get onto the subject of flying, then she can get a little over-excited. She positively adores flying, especially if she gets to pilot things, which she is as good as a rigger at, although she isn't one herself.
She also has with her, her Ares pred, remmington 990, and her fists and feet, all of which pack a fairly mean punch.
You also know not to give her anything with Lactose in it to eat, as she will be violently sick on you.

I think that's it, although will use the edit function if I think of other things that you guys would know

Toobit:

Male dwarf, caucasian, mid twenties. He is average height for a dwarf but tends to be on the thin side for his metatype. Toobit has long, wavy, blond hair and light blue eyes. If one can get past the fact that he is a dwarf he is rather handsome.

Those who have run with Toobit know that he wears plain, functional clothes with many pockets but not much in the way of distinctive designs. He carries basic running gear but mostly just relies on his main function. That function is magic use. Fellow runners would have seen him use a number of different spells but he does seem to have a wide variety of combat oriented spells.

Personality wise he is friendly enough with those he has worked with before. As long as they are friendly with him. He keeps everything on a professional basis and does not go to far into his or others personal lives. At times though he can get very focus and intense on a certain topic or problem. When he gets like this he can be very stubborn and gruff.

Dark Horse

Physical:
Human Male mid 20s Caucasian but with unnatural black skin
172 cm 80 kg
short black hair
When not working, he is usually seen wearing his black leather jacket with normal average everyday clothes. nothing fancy.

Icon (which you all would have seen during any regular commcalls) is a shadow that conforms to the shape of a horse.

Personal circumstances:
Youknow that he came into town with a smuggling group, but stayed behind when they moved on. Nothing else is known about his past. All that he says is, "a darkness took over".

Demeanor: Personally
If you didn't know Dark Horse you would have just assumed he got his name based on his style. Black clothes, modified black skin, modified black hair. But you know he is dark from how he looks at life. Sees the dark cloud in the silver lining, if you know what I mean. Sometimes he can be spotted staring at people in the street.

Demeanor: Professionally
Respectful, if sometimes impolite. When he is on a run, you can see him light up a bit.


Runner skills:
Anything that requires physicality, he is your man.

JW

Physical: Ork Male, African American, Middle Twenties, 192 cm, 124 kg, right handed

JW is not huge for an ork but it solidly put together with long sinewy muscles. He has a high forehead, short curly black hair and very slightly pronounced tusks. His smile, when he flashes it, is huge and toothy. However, when around strangers he spends most of his time hunched, scowling and glancing over his right shoulder.

He wears solidly built working clothes favoring heavy pants or coveralls combined with grungy, paint-and-mud-splattered t-shirts and steel-toe, steel-shank boots. Given the occasion, the boy does clean up very nicely though. JW seems uncomfortable with the cold Boston weather and bundles up like an out-of-towner from warmer climes.

Icon(s):

JW uses a blocky, standard icon that comes pre-loaded onto his commlink for most personal interactions.

When hacking, if you can slice through the layers of stealth protocols, JW's computer assumes the guise of a Union Soldier from the civil war.

Personal Circumstances:

JW is very familiar with Boston and some of the surrounding East Coast cities and appears to have lived in the area for some time. He has an apartment somewhere which he accidentally alluded to once.

Demeanor:

Though surprisingly hostile to most strangers and reticent about personal life and information, JW is a fond teammate. When he's around groups that he's worked with before he smiles easily, cooks and breaks into a deep Southern drawl which ranges from charming to uninterpretable.

Contrary to most runner stereotypes, he seems very interested in the personal lives of his teammates, but he recongnizes the need for anonymity in the line of work and tries hard to refrain from prying. He has been trying to engender some comraderie beyond professional respect, but judging by the other character descriptions, he's unlikely to have met with much success.

JW doesn't trust strangers, especially corporate and especially government agents.

Runner Skills:

In spite of his apparently uninspiring icon, JW can hack like a demon and has demonstrated his ability to do so. In addition, he's a competent gunfigter and is familiar, if not great at, survival and medicine.

XXX (and no, the char's name is not "triple-x")

This space intentionally left blank.

All righty then, nothing to see here folks. Move along.

-----------------

Oooh so that's all six of us.. does that mean an IC thread might not be far behind?

Wow and here was me about to send out pushy PMs to get people moving. IC thread coming soon. As well as that there will be OOC notes on how you got there. All will be clear when the posts are up.

Ophis has asked me to extend my artistic skills to you guys in this game and I have agreed to do so. In return for my drawings of your characters (you can check some of my work in my SR Artwork thread, or over in Frail Things, where I am doing our groups characters) you can grant me karma based on how well you thought I portrayed your character and the general quality of the drawing.

WE can grant karma!?!?!

You may want to toss out some guidelines, there, Ophis! I'm a fairly nice guy, and as a lowly player I've got no obligation to maintain game balance....

Anyway, Trigger, I would be pleased and delighted if you took a shot at my character Flat.
When and if you find time, the details of his physical appearance are in the second post on this thread. The most important point is that he really needs to have an emotionless facial expression.
I will reward you richly.......

Just don't go mad. Okay the IC thread will be posted tonight or tomorrow depending how my thinking goes. However here are some simple notes fr you guys to help understand your situation.

Vegas

You'll be just waking up. You know the details we've discussed PM if you need anything.

Everyone else

A lady called Mary (Elf, red head, irish extraction) has hired you to find a couple of missing persons. Your legwork tracked them down to being kidnapped by a cult who follow a shadow spirit calling it's self Orion. You consulted with Mary as your next step and she said to go all out at them she'd make sure you got any cover needed. She offered a 1,000,000 bounty on the groups leader as per Draco foundation details. She has has no confirmed ID on the leader. As a group you moved in on the cult's homebase and punched through their defences like a knife through butter. The Cultist either died or fled, you're just about to enter what from the maps you've acquired seems to be a ritual room. It's warded and you've had no visual from any cameras inside.

Pragma

JW has hijacked the cult's redementary spider system and has it dancing to his tune. You have enough info to track fleeing group members by comcodes for their security logins. You can be running it AR or VR as you prefer.

IC post will go up when I'mm feeling a bit more literary.

JW would probably be running AR and helping with fire support for the team unless there is a compelling reason not to do so.

Question: Do I know which commcode belongs to the cult leader?

Nope. That would be too easy.

Ophis

Vegas

Quck note, this building was once Block of posh apartments in a nice part of town, the crash ruined the area, and this place was taken over by gangs then the cult. The layout is most apartments with some walls collapsed to make space. The room your heading into is in the celler roughly at the centre of the building. Your in a corridor that has stairs up at both ends. The palns suggest this place was once a storage area for residents stuff.

*pokes people with sticks*

Yeah, I'm impatient. Sue me

How many cultists are we talking about, based on commcode registration? Once I know I'll probably have my agent start data mining

Wow - plopped down right in the middle of combat, and right before what may be the final showdown.

Very cool. Very fun.

But naturally means a ton of questions...I'll try to be brief.

How tough does the door look?

Does our map indicate whether there are any other exits out of the room?

How do we know the room is warded (my Magic Sense will detect it, for one thing)? Did the dwarf run into during a failed astral recon? Or is it astrally visible on the exterior side of the wall (rules maddeningly unclear on that point)? If we can see it, have we assensed it and gotten an idea how tough it is?

Flat is somewhere to the right of the door, watching the stairs that we didn't come down (or that direction if those stairs are not visible). In other words, the stairs that pragma is not watching.
Flat has his katana out and activated/readied. He is in Astral Perception, anticipating magical threats, and also keeping an eye out to make sure the shadow spirit doesn't try to get away.

Note that my Magic Sense should detect any spirits within 80 meters. The trick here is that the rules say I am supposed to treat this power as the Detect Magic spell, which means I roll Spellcasting + Magic vs. opponent's willpower (plus counterspelling plus ward rating if he's in it). That is a bit weird for adepts, since they don't get to have spellcasting skill. Also, for detection spells I think casters are supposed to make one roll and apply it individually to all resistance tests - should I be rolling my Magic Rating for each time I try to use the Power (that would allow me to keep shooting for higher successes with multiple uses) or just roll once forever (definitely use Edge on that one).
Near as I can tell, the designers really dropped the ball saying to treat an adept power as a spell.
So I will just handle this however you think best....if you want a roll, let me know what (just Magic Rating?), and when (and how often)...

Hey, don't you love how we just sort of nominated you to go through the door first...

I've played enough characters who took point, or who were just slightly tougher, and thus were volunteered to go first...
That and I kinda figured it'd happen that way, what with the make up of the team and all

Hell Metatron is used to shit as she plays in all my IRL games.

Okay to the questions.

Cultist escaping the buildings about 8.

Door is heavy duty wood, with an old key lock and dead bolts. And is of course locked.

This is the only exit to the room your schematics show. Room appears to have a high level ward round it (more than 5 force). I rule wards visible on the exterior walls.

You can't detect any spirits but your breif said it was powerful and stealthy so no surprise there.

For the shots, I am calling hits.

longarms+agility+smartlink= 15, therefore 3 hits.

I'm going to have my agent try to sort out which cultists are important to us at the moment:

If we know the leader's name the following actiions will be taken:
- Agent will be loaded with a browse program and a stealth program
- Agent will perform a data search for information associated with each of the commcodes
- When the leader's name is found associated with a commcode the agent will be loaded with track instead of browse and will perform continuous tracking operations on the leader's commcode (if probability is fair we should get updates on his location about once very 3 seconds).

If we don't know the leader's name:
- Agent will be loaded with a stealth program and a track program.
- The agent will perform a track operation on each commcode in turn and give me periodic updates on all of their locations. (if probability is fair, we should get updates on each cultist once every 24 seconds.)

The agent will dump JW an AR feed.

For reference, the current program load JW has is:

Armor
Stealth
Analyze
Agent
- Agent's stealth
- Agent's other program

He's running in hidden on both commlinks. If possible, he's also keeping a weather eye on the spider system that he's got hijacked -- just has an AR feed which he'll glance at periodically for warning signs.

Door goes thump!

Vega feel free to add a proper description of you.

Pragma, make a couple of rolls for your agents tracking. you have no name on the cult leader, hell you have who idea who it is.

Also make an Analyse+Perception test (yes weird i know) to see if you notice something from the spider system while talking to your agent.

Oh and Adamu can I have a composure test (Cha+Will) for Flat as he enters the room. He has no suggestion beyond the ward what to expect.

Analyze + Perception: # dice: 9 :: 6 6 2 6 2 2 3 4 3 -- 3 successes

I'm wondering why its not Analyze + Computer, but I assume all will be revealed.

Here's about 30 agent track rolls, let me know if you want more:
# dice: 8 :: 2 4 3 4 3 6 3 2 -- 1 success
# dice: 8 :: 2 4 6 3 3 6 5 3 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 1 3 4 2 3 1 6 2 -- 1 success
# dice: 8 :: 2 6 4 4 1 3 4 5 -- 2 successes
# dice: 8 :: 1 1 4 4 1 3 5 5 -- 2 successes
# dice: 8 :: 1 4 3 5 2 5 3 5 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 2 4 5 6 5 6 3 1 -- 4 successes
# dice: 8 :: 6 2 2 1 6 2 5 2 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 5 4 5 3 4 3 4 3 -- 2 successes
# dice: 8 :: 1 5 4 1 2 1 4 1 -- 1 success, glitch
# dice: 8 :: 6 1 2 5 2 1 1 1 -- 2 successes, glitch
# dice: 8 :: 6 4 3 5 6 1 6 4 -- 4 successes
# dice: 8 :: 5 5 1 2 2 6 2 3 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 5 5 5 6 1 4 2 3 -- 4 successes
# dice: 8 :: 4 1 5 3 5 3 4 6 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 5 3 4 2 6 1 5 3 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 3 1 4 2 3 5 5 2 -- 2 successes
# dice: 8 :: 6 1 4 6 2 1 5 1 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 2 5 4 3 6 2 5 1 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 6 5 2 5 6 4 4 6 -- 5 successes
# dice: 8 :: 2 3 4 5 4 1 1 3 -- 1 success
# dice: 8 :: 6 5 2 5 1 2 4 5 -- 4 successes
# dice: 8 :: 3 5 3 5 3 2 3 5 -- 3 successes
# dice: 8 :: 5 2 2 1 2 3 1 3 -- 1 success
# dice: 8 :: 6 5 6 1 6 6 5 6 -- 7 successes
# dice: 8 :: 5 5 3 3 1 3 3 3 -- 2 successes
# dice: 8 :: 3 6 5 4 1 5 4 5 -- 4 successes
# dice: 8 :: 2 5 6 6 6 2 2 5 -- 5 successes
# dice: 8 :: 6 2 4 5 3 2 3 1 -- 2 successes
# dice: 8 :: 2 2 4 2 5 5 6 2 -- 3 successes

And here was me considering two a couple to be two ish. I'll take a selection from there.

You've noticed what your where meant too. It'll be explained IC shortly. It possibly can be considered a clue!

Oh and another thing.

Yeah, I've been worried about it happening since I started recruiting for the game... So I had to joke about t.

I'm supposed to be getting thread notifications, but I'm not.
I'm sorry I let the thread get this long without my participation.

Anyway...

DarkHorse is with everybody else. Sporting my Ares M202.
[EDIT]

I entered the room. I, of course, see the elf. She doesn't appear to be a threat. I will scan the rest of the room looking for any threats. I'll wait for the magic users to evaluate the situation in the room before I proceed.

If everything is clear, I'll keep guard while others see to the elf.

@ Ophis
Is there anything that I should be rolling for right now. Or are we just deciding what to do now?

@ everyone else
I'm new to RPing online. I hope I don't slow the rest of you down.

Okay - we don't seem to have been plunged into combat so far, so I won't try to allocate these actions within initiative passes. But just in case things go south, I'll note what sort of Action they are.

As or before the door actually gets opened - Use Skill (complex) to use my Astral Phenomena Street Knowledge skill to see if I have ever experienced or heard of something astral that would give me the 'covered in oil' feeling.

Intuition + Skill = 10 dice
3 3 2 6 2 1 5 3 6 6 = 4 successes

Shift perception out of Astral (simple)
Deactivate weapon focus (free)
Walk through door/ward (move - no cost)
Reactivate focus (simple)
Shift back to Astral Perception (simple)

Composure check (I assume this is in reaction to what I see astrally? If not, assume I make the test before lighting back up in the astral).
Charisma + Willpower = 8 dice
4 5 5 4 4 2 1 4 = 2 successes
Hmmm - with no idea what the threshhold is, I guess I will wait to hear back from GM before I post IC.

Assuming I don't collapse to the floor in a slobbering Lovecraftian heap of panic, despair and insanity,

Observe in detail around room for any other entities, especially spirits (simple)
Intuition + Skill + Adept power = 19 dice
5 5 3 1 2 5 1 4 4 6 5 5 6 6 3 6 6 4 1 = 10 successes

Observe elf woman in detail (assense) (simple)
Intuition + Skill + Adept power = 19 dice
5 3 3 5 2 1 1 2 1 6 5 2 6 3 2 6 3 1 6 = 7 successes

Naturally cut me off if my actions have extended through into any external event, and please lop dice off the right end of the string for negative mods (or add some more rolls for positive mods).

Number of corpses in the room? More importantly, number of commlinks in the room?

Scan test: # dice: 12 :: 4 1 2 4 1 6 3 3 3 4 3 4 -- 1 success
-- a crappy roll, but should find anything that's not hidden.

Okay - my IC is up - but waiting to verbally report to team until I actually have something to report - i.e. the results of my perception tests (and my knowledge test?).

Ophis

Adamu - I admire your nerve.

Sorry - really didn't mean to come off like a smart-ass. I honestly didn't really know what I oughtta report.
Or were you talking about my spoiler content? Curiousity killed the cat, I guess.

The spoiler. No smart ass detected. I admire any player who goes into a bad situation and keeps the ability to see the nasty shit.

Pragma -

In light of the new information, I'm going to change the agent's instructioins a little. If it tracks a commcode to the location of the camera I'd like it to lock onto that comm and track it exclusively.

I'd also like to record the feed from the South camera so I can do some image processing later to ascertain whether or not we have our missing people and to learn who the cultist is.

Okies, I'll take that into account.

@Metatron

I figure since we've worked together before we'd likely know relative skill levels. JW's biotech is spoilered, look if you think it is appropriate:

Hey, it's better than mine!

Ophis

Biotech -- go !

Skill + Medkit Rating: # dice: 7 :: 4 1 3 6 5 2 2 -- 2 successes

Won't heal any damage, but maybe it will stop the bleeding and dull the pain.

Bleeding stopped!!

Hey Pragma, you forgot to add your logic to that roll!, assuming that the medkit is a 6

Ooopsies.
I got to excited by the shouting.
Also take a 2 dice penelty.