So, I have two players, with a third joining us for an introductory session on Sunday to integrate her character. The characters are:
Reaper: An Ork with the human-looking and blandness qualities, he's an ex-Novatech black ops company man who did some rather nasty things. He lost his SIN in the Crash, but his old boss still has it on file and is using that as a leash, figuring that, considering the sorts of things that he's specialized to do, it's best to have one more layer of deniability. The character, on a subconscious level, is starting to resent the leash; at present, though, he's a dangerous man looking for a cause or his next drink.
Kid Fox: An ex-AA corp citizen, he also lost his SIN in the Crash and, in the ensuing chaos at his corp compound, fell through the cracks. Took to the shadows, his eyes filled with the tri-d created glitter of the shadowrunning life... which lasted until about the time he got his arm cut off by some gangers that he'd pissed off. Having missed the SIN amnesty programs, he's currently stuck in the shadows, and has the goal of being a big name runner.
Elswyth: (joining us Sunday): An elven eco-radical from Portland (both the character and the player), Elswyph is a member of the Astral Space Preservation Society; she's new in town and is going to be looking for a Wiccan coven to join and a runner group to join to start hitting the corps with.
So, those are the characters; my campaign is set in 2068 Seattle, and we just finished our fourth session; things are going relatively smoothly and I have good, reasonable players (no munchkins). As the two guys were pretty much optimized for data steals and extractions, that's what they were going on at first. My plan was to let us all get used to the universe, let me set things up a bit, let them get into a routine, and than start shaking things up.
Up until this point, they've had two data steals, a switch/demo job and an extraction; the first data steal was something that I had to come up with on the fly; they had to break into an old gel round factory owned by Ares. The facility used to be owned by Cross, but not anymore, so Ares is at this point just squeezing it dry before they demolish it and build something else there. They had to sneak into the accountant's office and swap out a datastick for another one and also modify the data on the factory node. They pulled it off without a hitch (although, considering the security that Ares had on the place, they would have had to critically glitch to mess up).
My plan with that is simple--when Cross fell, there were still a bunch of Seraphim in deep cover in a variety of corps, so what they're doing is covering for each other, using shadowrunners when needed; in this case, it was very last minute, as the runner team that they normally would have used had been blown away earlier that week. I figure in another month of game time the undercover Seraphim will need their services again for another data swap--this time at a place with a bit more security.
The second run was a run on a place called BFT III Financial for the hacker's data broker contact; while it may look like a normal accounting firm, it's actually part of Shiawase's MIFD, doing data analysis. Reaper looked over the security setup and vetoed a physical insertion. Instead, they hacked their way into the personnel files and started narrowing down possibilities for people that would have access to the secure data-store node. They ended up finding a fellow named James Farrell and his girlfriend Keiko. After defeating their security setup on the apartment (by means of going around it; heading to the empty neighboring apartment and cutting his way in with a chainsaw) he took them to his safehouse, interrogated them, found out that they were decent hackers by the paired names of Boris and Natasha (
), got the passcodes into the secure node, and got the data. After that, they took them back to their apartment, tossed them back on the bed and took their commlinks for Kid Fox (who is now quite happy with all of the high level programs on them, even with the Gremlins that some of them have). The next run was knasser's Cold Blood module which you can find on his site; the Kid went in and essentially owned the security system with his new toys (after they got in signal range); they swapped out the blood sample and then blew up the power transformers with several kilos of rating 10 plastic explosive. They then took the blood sample to their street doc contact and had it analyzed, so they now have some dirt on their Johnson if they need it.
As they finished that run a little faster than I thought they would, I capitalized on a plot hook that I had mentioned earlier and sent them on a wendigo hunt; essentially, Tyrus, the local gang leader, had mentioned to Reaper that something was amiss in part of his territory. Once they investigated after finishing up with the module, they found that the newbie wendigo, having gone a bit nuts after his transformation, had emptied most of a seven-story apartment building of squatters. After finding the survivors holed up in the top floor with shotguns, they started going hunting, finding it in a nearby warehouse basement. They called in some help from their contacts (my personal PCs, Galen and Sneak) to help them clean up. The wendigo, more than a bit crazy, charged them while under an Invisibility spell and ripped the throat out of one of Tyrus' gangers; Reaper made it mad with a called shot to the head and then the Kid finished it with a beautiful shot (made with edge) to the heart. After that, it was cleanup of the cultists (who I used the Halloweener stats for).
So last week, they get a call from Reaper's NeoNET Johnson with a run that he's not allowed to turn down or negotiate--an extraction of a Shiawase scientist from Vector Matrix Services; he'd been doing some nice work on agents recently and NeoNET wants him. He's living in a little research park with his wife and kid. They manage to extract them without too much in the way of problems and are on their way to the drop off point when they get caught in a car trap set by some 405 Hellhounds. Unfortunately for the Hellhounds, they had bitten off more than they could chew already; they had trapped another team of runners, the Houdins, and were in the midst of a firefight with them when the PCs show up; both groups assume that the PCs are the other group's backup and open fire; the PCs, being unwounded, return fire; as most of the gangers and other runners are already gone and the remainder are wounded, it doesn't last long. Right before the end, though, Reaper spots a figure running away from the other runners' van; it doesn't get far, though, before a stray shot clips it in the side of the head and it goes down. After the battle, Reaper goes over and checks the figure; it's a young woman in her early twenties.
After that, they called up a Vory contact and begged a ride, dropped off their extracted cargo, collected their pittance and took the van to a mechanic to get the tires replaced (he overcharges them, naturally); after that, they hid out in Reaper's safehouse, having treated her wounds and waited for her to wake up, which took to about mid-afternoon. Once she woke up, they were planning on finding out who she was and why she would be extracted by the Houdins, who, as they found out, were a high-level team that specialized in covert extractions of high profile targets.
Unfortunately, when she wakes up... she doesn't remember anything, and starts to understandably panic, at which point most of the electronics in the place (not many, fortunately) started going haywire.
Now, I had to inform the players that, as it was 2068, technomancers were still under the radar, so while they might know what was going on, their characters didn't. So they trace her biometrics after she calms down a bit and find that she is one Aelita Stones, 23, Lone Star citizen employee... recently deceased. Franklin Associates had ruled that the apartment fire was an accident. They find out some more information about her, but not much, so they start hunting down the Houdins' commlinks to find out who hired them. Unfortunately, the bodies, especially the rigger/hacker's, with his implanted link, had already been sold to Tamanous by the medical student at the morgue, and the Yakuza had already bribed the other commlinks out of police lockup, so they're left with nothing in terms of trails that they're willing to risk following at the moment. Aelita, or Maya as she now calls herself, has decided to join them in the shadows, quite aware that someone or something is after her and that she has no other choice conducive to long-term survival.
However, she still wants her memories back, and she found that she has another possible route to take--before, she was in the habit of backing up her memories online, and her registered data sprite, Aponi, came looking for his mistress after a day or so, and manged to bring her a few pieces of her memories: some pieces of freshman year college, some teen years, some childhood memories. However, he doesn't know where the rest is, so she'll be spending her time divided between searching, shadowrunning, and compiling/registering sprites.
Now, as for her backstory, essentially, MCT hired the Houdins to extract her; between the excessive Fading from trying to get away from them, the drugs they gave her and the clip to the side of the head, she now has amnesia. MCT, upon finding out that the op got FUBARed, went into damage control mode, using the Yakuza to get the commlinks from lockup and bought the rigger/hacker's corpse from Tamanous, so they're all covered in that direction. Also, they have a few choice pieces of Aelita's memory that they found (which was the clue that she's a TM), so now they're going to use them as bait and wait.
At this point, Kid Fox is rather antagonistic towards her, as she messed with his equipment when she was panicking, and she's latching onto Reaper as an anchor to safety and sanity, while he is trying to remain professional and detached.
I figure that I'll give them a few more sessions to get attached to her and get into a routine before she accidentally finds the wrong piece of memory and brings MCT down on them.
I hope to, one day, have them wish for the days when they were doing extractions and datasteals. So, that's where things stand as of now. Whaddaya think? (aside from tl;dr)
750 for some Azzie memos worth at least twice that) and is going to start hunting down the great white hunter. Reaper is finished doing his training (I let the increase go quickly as the character does the Daily Dozen every morning anyway) and Elswyth is done setting up her new home to her satisfaction (the character is moderately claustrophobic (15 pt flaw) and has medium space for her home with High furnishings).