Just reading through Runner Havens as I close in on the start date for my Seattle based detectives campaign.
I keep coming across references to the Mayan Cutter, a serial killer who is leaving orks (maybe others) sliced up all over Seattle. Some of the jackpoint users claim it's just a cover-up for Lone Star's own brutal practices. I' suppose it's left vague purposely so that we can use the hook however it fits our own campaign. I'm just wondering if anyone has included the Cutter in their own campaigns.... How did it go? What was the true identity?

I have a campaign thought out, but I doubt I could ever get players for it. The idea is the mayan cutter believes that he is creating an ancient ceremony in Seattle. What is also muddying up the link is that there are several mayan cutters, copycats if you will. They each feed off the media attention in different ways. The other two use machettes while the real one using a ceremonial Aztec weapon.

Of course there is the general hysteria, media hype about the mayan cutter. Everyone points fingers, Lone Star at Aztechnology, Aztechnology at Ares, Ares at Horizon, and Horizon at whichever side of the opinion poll they are on.

Sort of a noir movie style, with haitian voodoo masquerading as Aztec. Ideas from Dexter's season villain mixed with Gabriel Knight.

since Aztechnology is the obvious suspect- have the urnners hired by Aztechnology to proven they are innocent.
Is the killer
a) another branch of the corp
b) another corp trying to give Aztechnology a pr problem to distract them.
c) a person runner/former corper/ who knows the 'truth' about Aztechnology and wants to stir up public outrage so someone will look into the dark corp?

Personally i like c because of them oral problems., the runners may well agree with C but he's killing people and they're paid to stop him.

Add a tiwest and make all the victims spouses or employees off Aztyechnology subsidaries

Better yet, let them be hired by Aztech Exec A to prove Aztech is innocent whilst the Mayan Cutter is actually something the higher up Execs plan. Then create some internal fighting and let the runners wonder why the heck their Johnson is found dead by the Cutter and some Aztech Goons are behind them because they know too much.

In my campaign, the Mayan Cutter was a Shedim possessing a child using an obsidian edged macuahuitl (Aztech weapon).

- J.

Heh... who does?

kinda like how one can mix and match germanic and norse divinity, or greek and roman.

same source, different branch, or something like that...

Blade, you know the difference is basically a matter of dates, yes?

- J.

Whatever the difference really is (though I think it's more than a matter of dates), my point is that such a declaration from Aztechnology should be all it takes to persuade the general public that Aztechnology (the company everyone loves) has nothing to do with that. And that's considering that the general public was suspecting something to start with, which I doubt (would you think that the "Mickey Mouse Murderer" is linked to Disney?)

Mayans where slaughtered by Aztecs.
Mayans where initially from the Yucatan ... ennemies of Aztlan in SR.
Check out some wikipedia stuff and also some history stuff on Yucatan, it'll be quite interesting.

Actually, the Aztecs were just extending their empire far enough south to come into hard contact with the Maya at the time the Spaniards showed up. 'Slaughter' is perhaps too strong a word for the relationship between the two. The Maya were every bit as warlike as the Aztecs, and had been around some 2500 years before the Aztecs.

It took the Spaniards two years to conquer the Aztecs... 200 years to get all the Maya under their dominion. It's unlikely it would have been any easier for the Aztecs to do so had the Spanish not shown up.

As an interesting aside, as far as I know, only the Maya and the Inuit populations have regained the numbers they had before the advent of the Europeans.

Very cool idea that, what.

I haven't used the Mayan cutter in my game, but if I did I guess I'd do something as in Farenheit/The Indigo Prophecy

I wont pretend i'm a scholar in that field, but i always thought the Mayas had "fallen" before the Europeans came in, those that where in the Yucatan and central american area where actually former mayan people, but nothing to do with their previous age of glory : mayans suffered an ecologicaly disaster and had to flee their cities.
Besides, regarding their numbers, dont you think it's overestimated to say they are as numerous ? isnt it the Incas instead ? (with Bolivia and Peru for exemple).

Starting wikipedia with Mesoamerican Chronology might help somewhat. (Given that there are apparently multiple theories on the origin of the Aztecs, trusting wiki might not be an entirely good idea.)

I trust Peter on his assessment of the Maya.

As an aside serial killers are adopted names by the media which may have nothing to do with modus, methodology or ideology. The name only serves mythologizing the unsub.

-Chrysalis

Peter gave a pretty good assessment. It was actually closer to 170 years than 200, but that is just a nitpick.

Awesome idea!! I have been thinking about planning out a detective campaign centered around a serial killer that targets homeless people (the logical result of watching a lot of Dexter while I work in the ER at Harborview). I wasn't sure how I was going to bring it all together, but this is exactly the piece I was missing!!

The final Mayan kingdom was conquered by the Spanish in 1697 which is 195 years after the first contact between Spanish and Maya, but 182 years after the first military expedition by the Spanish against the Maya, under Hernández de Córdoba, which ended dismally for the Spanish, including de Córdoba who received 33 wounds and died from them shortly after retreating to Cuba.

The oft-mentioned "Maya Collapse" was described by early archaeologists as a disappearance of the Maya, but is now known to be a phenomenon localized to the Central Lowlands of the Yucatan, and specifically to the elite of that region. The commoners stayed on for centuries later there, before the last of them voted with their feet against rulers who no longer had the inside track with the gods. They went north to the main Yucatan peninsula, and south and west to the Highlands. Chichén Itzá, the largest of the Maya capitals and centre of the largest kingdom (some say empire) of the Maya grew in the Northern Yucatan in part as a result of this exodus. All this happened centuries before the Spanish arrived on the scene.

The Maya never disappeared as a people, as a linguistic group, or as a political entity in the region.

White human male, mid thirties, bachelor degree, charismatic, high-functioning, very intelligent, wageslave, takes orders from his totally mundane dog. Neighbors describe him as "quiet" and "very nice".

To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a serial killer is just a serial killer.

Hyzmarca are you trying to profile Dilbert?

Dilbert is not charismatic.

- J.

Alright,

Charlie Brown?

Charlie Brown is not really charismatic ether.

William Lyon Mackenzie King?

He actually works.