So my runners are based out of Omaha and are relatively new to the area. We've got a few people that are brand new, a couple that are new but well read and one who played in one of my campaigns years ago. In an effort to get the rest of them broke into the larger shadowrun world I'm thinking about having Damain Knight visit town. I don't have plans for the characters to meet him, and they certainly won't get into a fight with him or anything like that but it should create an interesting enviroment. These are fairly green runners 400bp only a few actual misisons under their belt. Omaha is a KE policed town so with Ares CEO in the area they'll be on high alert and will create a nice sense of paranoia.

The setup: Former Chief Master Sergent Reginal "Reggy" Vimes has passed away. Reggy was a USAF Master Sergent and programmer when Echo Mirage went operational and did a lot of programing ont eh first cyerware systems and the smart system that would later become Mirage. He also helped get a handle on the Crash virus although the PTSD he contracted as a result didn't help him much. Unlike his boss Knight/Gavilan he had no intetion to rule the world or even change it. He was a respected programmer writing some fo the first attack programs and working on military software for the UCAS. Approaching his retirment an extractiona ttempt was made by an unknown corp that got a lot of young GI's killed. Reggy swore that this kind of crap would never trouble him again and accepted a job at Ares witht he understanding that his name would never go in a corporate directory. He spent the remaining 40 years of his life keeping Ares progaming teams at least in step with it's more matrix heavy competitors and making sure that history, and especially the matrix forgot about him. Upon his death his last wishes were to be buried in his home town of Omaha which his employer and friend saw happen.

A fading/faded otaku named Arclight wants someone to dig up Reggie's corpse and disect it. He suspects that Reggie may have been one of the first Otaku/Technomancers even if only a latent one and if so would be one of the first created by the AI Mirage. This is part of his long term goal which may involve the runners (they have a technoshaman on the team) of ressurecting Mirage. To that end he sets out to hire the runners to steal the corpse while concealing it's importance and interest to him. Of course with Knight in town (secretly) paying his respects the runners might figure out that something larger is going on. With their Johnson being even more evasive then most and the target corpse having a stragely blank history not to mention all these HTRT's that just seem to loiter int he area of the cemetary what the devil is going on here? Also lets not even get into the ghouls who plan on digging up the corpse themselves to supplement their food supply.

I'm interested in getitng others thoughts on this plot and the possible ramifications/experience of using such a personage and a plot pretty well dialed in to some high level SR stuff.

I know that this is just a brief overview, but what keeps the players from just camping out till Knight leaves town and then digging things up? All they'd have to do is keep an eye on things to make sure noone else did it first.

Plot is perfect for new runners.

Not sure what Damien Knight contributes to it exactly but really, all his presence does is lend weight to the story that this guy might be important (I'm presuming Knight may have attended his funeral)?

- J.

Well there is the fact that their end goal is the disection and recovery of any relevant data on the corpse. They don't stay fresh that long especially considering Reggy requested no embalming but yes just waiting for the heat to die down is the best option from a safety perspective but may affect their end pay out. Mostly i want to see if the team will put a watch on the cemetery for when the distinguished party leaves or trying to swap the corpse at the funeral home. If they don't put the cemetery under surveillance the ghouls will lift it more or less immediately after the DV's leave (they've got friends on the grounds staff).

But yes mostly Knight is here to add weight tot he mission and make the runners question who their working for and what their really doing. Knight for his part won't officially attend the funeral. His cover is he's here to tour the expanded ares enclave/arco built just outside of Omaha. They could potentially interact with him if they are cleaver and stealthy but I've got to be very careful so it's not disbelief snapping or GMPC.

I thought I'd post a follow-up to detail what happened to the run.

So I started the evening handing the players a made up news sheet from the local shadow site. Biggest article was a raid on the local Azzy pyramid the night before that ended epxlosively. Just to give the players a sense that their not the only runners operating in the sprawl. The second article wa son Damien Knights visit. The last itty bitty piece was on their run and the consequences thereof although it focused more on the police LT contact they'd made and his big drug bust.

SO the players go, meet with their Johnson, two mortuary studies students who give the impression they want the corpse for a particular prank, possibly racially motivated. Even though the team picked up indications they might not be all they seem they didn't investigate. Nor did they do digging once they realized that their target had suspiciously no digital footprint other then to determine that he might have been involved in the echo mirage project. That didn't raise much of a concern with them. Maybe i should have had a handout ready on echo mirage. Live and learn.

In any case they show up at the cemetery out on the outskirts of town and find security pretty light except for the parked and board looking KE patrol car with not 1 but 2 officers. This doesn't raise their suspicion They stay at the site all day hoping the patrol will just leave. At closing time for the cemetary they even try hacking one of the perimiter drones and have it instruct the KE patrolto leave. THe KE patrol calls in a hacker who has all the drones return to the storage shed but doesn't notice the groups technomancer lurking on the system.

So closing time and the advance security detail arrives. An APC armed with a laser canon rolls into the park. Two of the runenrs didn't have stealth so when the APC released it's drones and instructed everyone in the area to go to active PAN they were pretty swiftly found out. The troll caster tries to resist arrest (non lethaly) with the orgasm spell and is brought down pretty swiftly the ninja attempts to get to the grave not yet realizing that the security detail is paying special attention to the grave. She is caught and so is the Technomancer soon after. As they have all been zip tied and placed in a row (kneeling execution style) the KE mage gets on the com "site secure bring in wargod" and the Ninja smacks her forehead to the ground "Wargod, fuck it's Knight"

The runners have a tense moment while their being mentally scanned and wathcing knight pay his respects at the grave. Knight upon learning who they are and that they are not hear because of him laughs about the whole thing and instructs his detail to let them go once he has departed after having a rather odd little chat and chiding them to "buy Ares" as he's leaving. While i was afraid this would feel too hackneyed or hand of god all the PC's and indeed the players thought it was very cool one of them pointing out that it made sense for Knight, a guy who believes himself a good person, to all else being equal, do the benevolent thing if it costs him nothing. After Knight left the KE patrol cut them loose returned their gear to them and left.

For the sake of completeness i'll detail the rest of what happened.

The team as they were leaving were confronted by a group of ghouls, however the ghouls leader was the trolls casters contact who had done him a solid earlier so while the team wasn't willing to give up the body they agreed to do the ghouls a favor in the future. I plan on having that come up later when he tries to hire them.

On the way to the drop site the team got a call from a previously unknown party offering to double their money in exchange for the body. The team jumped at the chance as they hadn't cared for their original J's. On arrival on site their new J betrayed them (delicious irony) and attempted to kill the adept and the mage and snag the technomancer for forced recruitment. The team fought their way free of his hastil prepared trap and contacted their fixers. Their fixers set them up with a safe house and put them in touch with Arclight who explained the whole deal to them. He also mentioned that he'd intercepted the call they'd made betraying their original J but was going to let it slide as he needed their co-operation. However he did make it clear that if they attempted to betray them, he would put all his not inconsiderably resources towards killing them and ruining their reputations.


Next run: The team waits for it's resident medic to return to town from her own solo session so she can perform the autopsy and get the data to arclight. They also anticipate further attacks from the evil technomancer they escaped previously.

Cool run and a neat way to introduce the PC's to the world.

I like Knight's Wargod codename too. Back when I was running a Firewatch campaign Knight's Codename was G1 (The starting position of the White King's Knight in Chess)

I like the run.
Gives a lot of freedom to the players while keeping them focused.
Every char should be able to get his shining moment.

The only problem I see for new runners is that they might not realise how excessive the security is.