What would happen to a character receiving a blood tranfusion from a surged donnor ?

Presuming the blood types matched, the same thing as getting a blood transfusion from anybody else. SURGE isn't HIV, you don't "catch" it.

That's kinda like asking what happens if a black guy gives a blood transfusion to a white guy. The answer is nothing special.

The Surged blood is full of magic no ? Or it's just the gene of the Surged that used magic to change them ?

No and no. It's like getting a blood transfusion from a troll. You don't turn into a troll.

Thanks ! I was wondering.

How could I give surged quality to a character that did not take it ?

Well, exposure to a high level of magic could do it (Basically what happened with all the surges during the comet). However, if the person was alive during the comet (Most characters should have been) and didn't get transformed then, later transformation seems less likely because they were already exposed to high levels of magic and weren't affected by it, which seems to indicate they don't have the right genes to SURGE.

It could be a post puberty only thing though, so if they were young during the comet, and then exposed to high levels of magic later in life, it might make sense, as their genes weren't ready to SURGE during the first high exposure of magic.

If you really want to cause them to SURGE, use a dose of movie science and a handful of magic, stir gently for two sessions.

Basically: Runners get hired to steal a prototype from a genetic research facility (guarded with critters and warforms, etc.) while inside the facility, they discover that the primary lab has been aspected through Geomancy to maintain a constant background count. Now the scientists were actually expecting the runners and they are being used as bait, so when the team gets into the lab, they are dosed with a retroviral agent designed to rewrite certain genetic tags that are consistent in Awakened and SURGE'd critters. The retroagent in combination with the background has an increased chance of causing SURGE or mutations. (Going from 1% to 7-10% in the research data)

Now the runners who want to SURGE have an in game reason to let them, and if you are inflicting it upon runners, give them an Edge Test to see how lucky they were.

Bishop I love you Thanks !

This probably won't work too well, because a retrovirus usually needs time to alter the genetic makeup of the individual cells of the body of whoever catch it. Also retroviruses are not exactly pinpoint-targeting unless tailored for a specific genome - that's a reason genetic therapies while more readily available are still cutting-edge and expensive in SR4 and requiring monitoring and sometimes correction of unexpected complications.

This means they are not likely to SURGE in the lab (making the experience much less interesting), but rather later, when they are exposed to high mana levels and have enough cells genetically altered, and may get a few extra negatives qualities (for exemple enough to pay for the SURGE class obtained) due to clumsy genetic integration.

Dahrken--Using "real science" that's fairly true, but we're talking about "movie science" where things like cold fusion work and retroviruses can turn people into zombies.

If you wish, but what would be the point of the whole setup ?

Why compromise the location of a high-end facility to skilled, violent individuals of dubious morality who owes you no loyalty at all ? Why risk penetration and damage of said facility ? Why risk a high likelyhood of escape of your subjects, requiring an extensive manhunt to get them back - because you need them in close observation to get useful experimental datas.

It's not only much more effective to experiment on SINless guinea pig snatcheds or bought from some rathole like the Barrens, it's probably cheaper too...

Also if the SURGE is triggered in the facility this means all affected characters will be completely incapacitated for at least a few hours while their body recover from the intense stress of the brutal change and they adjust at least minimally to their new abilities. If enough of the players whishes to SURGE, this can end in automatic capture and the beginning of a new carrer as corporate guinea pig.

Send the runner breaking in the facility for another corp interested in finding out what goes on there (or someone just wanting to wipe it out), then some srew-up expose them to the viral strains (but don't tell them unless they search hard for the info) and trigger the change later, in some completely unconnected run.

Metagenic Art Museum of Manhattan ? Hey they must want some good stuff to show and if they can have a specimen that can surge live each week ...

It could always be a false front - rent a building through a fictional corporation, set up some convincing security, throw some scientists in there [well briefed corpsec guards who have high mental stats in case they get questioned]. If the runners were hired to get paydata, make sure it's convincing but ultimately unworkable. Make sure the runners get exposed and then tagged for surveillance. Then the company monitors the runners for the SURGEs that express, and the resulting psychological fall out.

Sounds like an expensive way to get hunted down by psychotic and skilled killers to me.

Not that much. Since They could use that to test stuff inside a nobody to obtain something in return (ie Metagenic artwork).

Or... go to the nearest homeless shelter and say "Hey, I'll give you a decent place to sleep and three squares a day as well as some money in exchange for helping us test this new drug." Bam, significantly cheaper, lower chance of anyone dying, lower chance of trained killers being mad at you, better observation because they will be living in some highly monitored room and you can ask them questions about how they feel and such. Really, I can't think of any reason to go through all that trouble to infect runners when homeless bums are so much easier.

I prefer the idea that the runners are infiltrating the lab where they were working on the bums and happened to get hit with the virus by mistake.

Maybe there's a quality about the runners that isn't likely to be found in random bums, such as being Awakened or having a highly cybered body, that the scientists want to test their drug on. People like that aren't likely to agree to shady drug sampling, especially if they know that it's supposed to cause horrible genetic reformation. Runners are much more likely to have unique qualities about them that ordinary people wouldn't and have the added benefit of living outside the law with usually no family to notice that they're missing. Who better to test your drug on than the person who is most likely to exhibit the most bizarre effects who can be easily erased later?

Would/should there be a karma cost associated with the change?

It would make a Karma dept. (I would follow the latent surge quality for the transformation).

What happens if a character get 6 succes to an Edge Test in the roll to know if there is a mutation. Do I ask the character to get Surged at 3 and then surge him again later ?

Or does it stop at 3 ?

Also what would you do if someone was already playing a SURGEd character? Would you mutate them even further or would they be unaffected?

That's the other problem ...

Why are you out to spend someone else's karma points for him and make him play a SURGEd character if he didn't want to play one in the first place?

Personally, I'd be a little off-put by it if I showed up to an ongoing Shadowrun campaign and the GM was like "Oh, by the way, you've got a kangaroo pouch and a tail, now. Oh, and you're six or eight karma points in the hole, too," without a very good reason, and maybe even a few dice being slung around.

Well, you can always put a bucket filled with radioactive spiders on top of a door the runners will walk through


The real joke is this: you set up the faux lab, put some expendable paydata in there, and make the whole "irradiate them with magic and retrovirii" look like it was the runners' fault for accidentally wrecking some equipment. They won't blame you for that. (ALWAYS make the players think it was really their fault!) If you're going to make them pay karma for the mutations (should you? If it's a plot device, and they all get equal amounts..) you should definitely let them have some say in what kind of mutations they get.

Why would the scientists pick runners? Their serum didn't work on average bums.. it takes people with sufficient stress levels and high-strung lives to trigger it..

Or: they made sure the facility looks like Corp X, while it's actually Corp Y; Corp X now has to deal with very pissed off runners..



This could turn really funny.

The Karma will be removed from several karma attribution but not only in one shot.



Make them think it's their fault ... There you go ! That should do the trick.

Hehe, or just grab some burned out Horizon employees. Corp Enclaves talks about how high their burnout rate/stress levels can get, despite everyone loving working there. I'm sure there are plenty of others in the world that have just as much stress and fewer heavy weapons.

I do like the Corp X disguised as Corp Y idea, but it seems like it would be cheaper to just pay the runners to go after Crop Y than pay them to go after fake Corp Y and set up the elaborate hoax.... Then again, revenge is a much more powerful motivator than money.

As for PCs complaining about becoming SURGEd against their will... well, everyone SURGEs against their will. No one picks it and certainly no one gets to pick what they SURGE into. Personally I kind of like the idea of a random SURGE, as that is how it actually does happen.

So, just yesterday I was re-reading an old first (second, maybe?) edition adventure called Metagene, basically, the Aztechnology had developed a retro-virus capable of SURGE-ing people more than 15 years before the Year of the Comet, the shadowrun team was hired by Biogene to steal the virus and the data. After two decades of study and SURGE, the virus could have been improved in a lot of ways, maybe, even removing the SURGE traits acquired during the Comet.

That's a nice hook !

Latent Metagenetics. If they didn't take the quality, they don't get to get it. If they didn't take it because they didn't know about it, then they know better for the next character now, don't they?

Man, turning your whole group into genefreaks via fiat is pretty much going to limit their options in a big way.
Subtlety and subterfuge aren't so compatible with having a Beak, Insulating Fur or Third Eye.

I like Brazilian_Shinobi's idea of dynamic genetweaking. Make the players work for it, sure, but give them an out.

That'S why I'm going to use that avenue !

So, just to add more things from the mission. The lab had been cut off from the outside world after a Resident Evil kind of accident, the runners would find a lot of mutated people, things like a cross-breed between a human and tiger or wolf or bear.
After getting the samples the team would meet their Biogene contact on the docks but the Humanis killed the contact hoping to get the virus and use it to change dwarves, elves, orks and Trolls "back" to humans.