This is awesome. Stick it in your Places to go thread!

Deep in the underground exists a small community of ghouls, the Morlocks, that run a funeral service. Rotting bodies in the underground are a health hazard, and burial or burning in such confined spaces is problematic. The ghouls strip the flesh from the deceased, clean and polish the bones, and return them to the paying customer in a decorative cloth package to be placed in the family crypt. Being much cheaper than traditional services (basically the cost of the cloth) and as it avoids any unnecessary questions from the 'authorities', the Morlocks funeral service is a good way of disposing of that inconvenient body. And they accept visa.

In the Seattle Ork Underground there is a small soy-caf shop called the "Ether-Net Cafe". Operated by a small hispanic ork named Kendra Wasson (who is rumored to be an ex-shadowrunner) the Ether-Net Cafe offers, for a nominal fee, a means of communication when technological means are problematic or impossible (like when too deep underground to get wi-fi access) by means of watcher spirits. Nothing that people haven't been doing since the Awakening right? Kendra Wasson's innovation with the Ether-Net is to act as a coupling between the watcher spirit network and the Matrix. So if you need to send an email to your buddy in Hong Kong, but you're currently 60 meters below the street level of Tacoma, you can send your watcher to Kendra and she'll relay your astral telegram to Hong Kong. Of course payment must be made in advance, so I advise you open your account and provide a forward balance before you need Kendra's services.

The runners are barrelling down I-5 with Lone Star hot on their tails when they run into a team heading the opposite direction with an equally impressive contingent of Knight Errant in pursuit. Sparks fly.

• Shadows of North America (2001 ,set in 2062)
  • "Though trailing MIT&T, Georgia Tech is still in the same league and conducts its share of cutting-edge research, particularly in the fields of chemical engineering and material science."
  • "Corporate competition isn't that fierce over student, as most of the superstars go to MIT&T or CalTech."

While passing in the metro station (or any station), characters see a guy talking alone with his commlink. He's crying and saying things like "Please don't do it! I´ll get you the money... i have family... no i don't, but i´ll get the money... i´ll pay ya!"... the men look desperate. Then, suddenly his head explode sending pieces of flesh, brain, blood, hair and skin all over anybody that's unluckily near enough.

At some point, the runners pissed of the 5th Street Hag, and naturally being an old witch who follows Raven, she cursed them. Summoning a powerful spirit, she commands it to run them in circles until dawn. Obedient to the last, the spirit waits until the runners have entered the express lane before using its Concealment power on the exits (and itself) and then using its Confusion power to keep them from noticing. The Seattle Needle always seems to be getting closer, but always just a mile away...

Dude! They can do that? I'm totally using that.

A free nature spirit, who is desperate to clean up some delapadated lot, stumbles into a bit of money. Wanting help cleaning up. but not understanding the human world too much, the spirit hires shadowrunners for a 'cleanup job.' The runners are surprised to find that they are actually supposed to clean up the lot.

Brilliant.

The target of the run turns out to be several cases of jam. Real jam. It seems that the hottest restaurant in town serves this jam for Sunday brunch because it's so rare. Rare you ask? Awakened Black Raspberry jam. Rare because not only is the plant itself difficult to find and cultivate but because picking fruit from a bramble that has the nasty habit of strangling you with it's thorny shoots makes things more than just a little interesting.

Deep under the sprawl, even deeper than the "underground", are the new realms of the underworld. Dug deep with the aid of magic, these enclaves, founded by the descendants of the survivors of the Night of Rage, scrape out a living any way they can. One of the more prevalent is smuggling.

It can take days to walk from one side of the sprawl to another on foot, even if one were foolish or brave enough to try it, and it takes even longer to travel the same through the underground. Dead ends, vertical challenges, toxic pools and dangerous wildlife- to say nothing of the inhabitants- add to the difficult terrain to make such a journey even more dangerous. So what's a smuggler to do? How does the underground smuggler compete with his topside counterparts who can cross the entire sprawl by car in a matter of hours?

He takes the Suicide Express of course.

Built by a number of ork sorcerers, the Suicide Express is a network of magically crafted tunnels connecting a number of underground enclaves stretching from Commencement Bay (and perhaps much farther north) to Carbando. Just large enough to ride a motorbike through, the Suicide Express features no police patrols, no traffic lights, or no aerial/orbital surveillance making it an attractive option for the underworld smuggler.

There are dangers of course. The tunnels are mostly created through solid stone by orks with no knowledge of engineering or geology. There is no lighting, traffic control, emergency lanes or exits. Edge too close to the wall and lose it and your corpse will become a traffic hazard until somebody bothers to come looking for your cargo.

Small wars have been fought for control of the network, but recently Tye (short for "tyrant"), the leader of the enclave of Ereth, has forged a series of treaties and alliances that, for the moment, have brought an uneasy peace to the underworld.

You know a dozen people who are employed, pay taxes, send their children to public school (for what it's worth), an yet live in a condemned warehouse because they can't find or afford proper housing.

You don't know anyone personally that cooks with anything more than a microwave oven.

Old Johny down the block is considered 'quaint' and 'old fashioned' because he actually turns off his AR before falling asleep.

The local Renter's Association is pushing for a "No flying zone" over the nieghborhood- not for planes or helicopters but for mages and spirits who tend to fly at much lower altitude.

You know a fixer that always arrainges his face to face meets in an AR Spam Zone, and nobody seems to know why.

the all ghoul production of Thriller is in town and they need some extra security.

You could transplant Terry Pratchett's Wee Mad Arthur into the SR universe.

The runners are barrelling down I-5 with Lone Star hot on their tails, when they overtake a Knight Errant team in pursuit of an equally impressive contingent of Shadowrunners. Sparks fly.

Fixed.

I don't know, running head on into a pursuit going the wrong way on a two lane section of I-5 sounds interesting too.

This thread is in the top 5 (at a guess) for "thread that's made me laugh the most" - in ANY forum, EVER. Thanks, guys!

*Over the Renraku New Network*

This public service announcement: Absolutely nothing happened on the 40th floor, north wing, by the emergency stairwell, of the Renraku Arcology between 2:00 A.M. and 2:15 A.M. Seattle Time.

This is a public service announcement: Please disregard the previous public service announcement as absolutely nothing happened.

*loud static* This is a public service announcement from XHADOW, your source for all the REAL news. Check out the XHADOW node on Shadowsea and we'll tell you what didn't happen. Back to you, suckers! *static*

*Checks Shadowsea*

Whoa man, that stuff that didn't happen wasn't the coolest stuff that ever didn't blow my mind. I am totally not going to be hired from the nonexistant fallout from that thing that didn't happen. Thanks for not informing me about what didn't happen, Xhadow.

Gotta love trid pirates ^_^

These are out of order. Now I've fixed it.