Recently I watched Repo! The Genetic Opera and I was inspired to create NPCs based off of the Repo Man and the Graverobber. They would both work for Tanamous (sorry if misspelled). The Repo Man would hunt down people with expensive ware and acquire it for the company. In addition he would repo the organs/ware of clients that have failed to pay there debts back. The Graverobber would be tasked with breaking into morgues and hospitals to steal organs/ware from there original owners.

The Repo Man would be a highly augmented human with extensive surgical knowledge and little problem with killing. The Graverobber on the other hand would be more of an infiltrator. He would need to get in and out without leaving a trail. I was thinking an adept with great perception and stealth skills.

What NPCs have you all made based on media inspirations like movies and books?

On a similar note have any of you used any of the characters from the novels in any of your runs? For instance in one run I wrote I used the Professur (sorry for spelling its been a while since I read it) from Changeling after he had been established as a real runner. My runners hired him on as professional muscle for a run in which they were lacking in that dept.

try and watch the old COPS Animated series < = great stuff in there ^^
also: X-Men and other assorted stuff O.o

Media? Most NPCs are based on people I've met. Then again, I live in a disturbingly amusing reality.

In an established world like SR of course I use the NPCs that have cropped up in the novels and the theme text. My PC group at the moment have recently encountered Serrin, Lord Geraint and Michael Sutherland.

However my favourite SR NPC was a Johnson based on a mix of Deep Throat and the Cigarette Smoking Man from the X Files. A real shades of grey character.

I am running Ghost Cartels, and have added a troll brother group inspired on the Omar Little character from the Wire (HBO series). They have mixed it up on a few drug heists putting, catching the players as collateral damage, six bullets in the chest of the teams face heated things up . My team are currently tracking them down for some revenge pro bono.

Fagin, from Oliver Twist. Charismatic opportunist, sniveling fence, and paranoid lunatic, all in one. He's got a little warehouse filled with odds and ends, electrical scraps, machine parts, piles of clothing, and so on. A group of street urchins do the gophering, ferreting out the clients needs from the stock - usually bringing out anything even closely related and acting pitiful to up the sale.

I also used these places as inspiration for a location around Glow City called The Dump. Lots of great characters for that.

Boney M - Ma Baker < = elder Orkish Woman from one of the Z-Areas *snickers*
Boney M - Ra Ra Rasputin < = Russian Elf Mage with healing and mindrapery/pornomancy and possession spirits thrown in for good measure . .

I have a street doc based off Nurse Joy and her ever-present Chancey from Pokemon. The doc's name is Doc Chopper. He's a little eccentric guy who runs a really tight shift. The two times they've called him up, he's had people screaming in the backround and doesn't notice. When asked about the blood-curdling screams, he non-chalantly replies "Oh, they didn't make their full payment." The screams are usually ended by a gunshot, followed by Doc Chopper saying "Can I interest you in a special deal with some newly aquired 'ware? It's fresh."

When they pull up to his store, they find a run-down, ratty old shack, with chip-heads and burnouts all over the place and bombed out buildings, carfires, and all that jazz nearby. The front door looks like it's about to splinter apart, and it's all boarded up. When they subscribe to the building's node and approach the door, it slides into the wall with a hissing noise and immediately fills the alleyway with a bright, clear light. Stepping inside, they see chromed surfaces everywhere that are completely spotless. They track dust through the floors with their shoes and leave fingerprints on everything they touch. The door slides closed and hermetically seals behind them.

There's a front desk with a bell for service, and they usually hear Doc Chopper telling them to just choose a room that doesn't have the curtain drawn. The front lobby leads into an equally sterile hallway with adjacent rooms only divided by a pull-curtain. Usually one has the curtain pulled, and blood, gore, and parts of entrails are seen leaking out from inside.

When they see Doc Chopper, he's completely blood-splattered and his white coat is soaked crimson. When asked, he says he's "Still covered in his last customer," who coincidentally "made a late payment." He tells them to go ahead and remove their clothes and get on a table, he'll clean up and get with them momentarily. They're met by a Renraku Manservant-III with a female's voice named Charity who helps them in a nurse's capacity.

However, I've painted him as a supremely gifted surgeon with an astounding inventory. One guy got r2 Muscle Toner (Doc Chopper was trying to get him to upgrade, but the guy didn't want any "special deals". I wonder why) and was out of surgery with only 3 Stun boxes after only two hours. They haven't used another Street Doc since.

What makes it even more fun is they're based out of Seattle, but had occasion to go to Albequerque (I don't care how to spell it). When one of the members called their fixer (not the same player who met Doc Chopper), they set him up with a "shady but good" street doc. The guy went to the location and met Doc Chopper, with his Nurse Charity. When asked, Doc Chopper said he was Albequerque born and raised, and had never been to Seattle. The Seattle Doc Chopper had never heard about the other guy either.

I use NPCs from all kinds of media, just adapted to the Shadowrun world.

I currently use a fixer based on Badger, a mechanic based of Kaylee and a talismonger based on Shepherd Book from Firefly. And a fixer based on Lew Ashby and a Horizon secretary based on Mia, both from Californication. I've found that almost any good TV show can provide nice personalities and sometimes backgrounds for contacts and villians in SR.

A pair of Johnson's based off of Tomax and Xamot from GI Joe

I throw words together or think of silly phrases and develop a personality around them. I created a Hong Kong based hacker NPC named Oom Papa Mao-Mao after watching a John Waters lecture.

Baby name books and websites are also great resources.