All Wheels Flat turned on the burners, and heavy guns popped out of the rig's bodywork, and Francois realised that he was indeed fresh out of options. It was fight, or die - either here, or in jail. He called upon his magic, and with the unexpected addition of this force, the tools of Lone Star (both biological and artificial) were outclassed. All Wheels Flat was surprised, but grateful, and carried him the rest of the way down to New Orleans. There Francois learned that the fisheries were a dying closed shop, which even if he could joined, didn't pay much, but that his talents were worth both a lot of money and some respect too. He joined, with All Wheels Flat's word in his favour, a team of runners called the Bayou Babies, largely francophone (two immigrants from Quebec round them out).

The Bayou Babies were glad of Francois's assistance, and went on a run which took them to old Alabama, where the target was a bioware processing plant where they were supposed to introduce a flesh eating bacterium into the sprinkler system and start a fire. It all went right, until it started going left. Who knew bioware companies would have such frighteningly effective guards? Francois escaped - barely - leaving a massive spirit in his wake which wreaked destruction. The surviving members of the Bayou Babies (both of them) think that Francois is dead, and pulled a Samson act, bringing that wing of the plant down around his own ears,but in fact he managed to escape and patch himself together, and since he, on his stumbling run out of there, collected a batch of altered gator eggs, which he managed to flog, has a little cash on his credstick.

After this experience, Francois turned his back on the shadows. It was all too risky for him, and had no place in his future plans. Now, wandering around, as SINless as ever, and presumed dead, his options might be limited but the trail will probably run cold for untalented investigators. The Bayou Babies, even if bribed, can only describe where they saw him making a last stand, and that's pretty much it. The building went down, and they never saw him again.

Francois decided that cities were the wrong land for him, so he went down South, further and further, until he could hitch a ride on a boat with some fishermen. They were iffy about it, but he handed them a fat certified credstick and told them he wanted to just slide off into the Everglades. They thought him insane, and they remember him all too well, but nuyen are nuyen, and they just filed a regular property loss claim on their dinghy, claiming it came loose in rough conditions in the Gulf, and didn't tell the insurance company about the crazy cajun swamprat in the boat.

More to come

Marvelous!

As of the start of investigations, Francois has found a forgotten corner of the Everglades in which to hole up. He's used to slightly different swamps, but knows the survival skills which can get him by. There are also many snakes, and he feels at home with them as well.

Investigators who intend to seek Francois out will need to be adept at piecing together many clues to find him. His break out of the swamp wasn't well documented, but the shootout relatively nearby involving All Wheels Flat made the headlines, of course. It shouldn't take a genius to find it worth following up.

All Wheels Flat isn't super secretive. After all, he spoke to the Bayou Babies about Francois, so that's an easy link to follow.

The Bayou Babies are willing, to shadowrunners in good standing, to discuss the course of events and explain what happened. They believe Francois to be dead, and it's very hard to prove any different. On the other hand, All Wheels Flat should mention that Francois considered the fisheries, so if he did survive, looking in that direction would be feasible.

Burning some shoe leather with fast talk and some data on which boats set sail and when (available from the harbourmaster, either officially or not) will bring up the fishermen, and a bit of surveillance, perhaps by aircraft, might actually find him.

If all the jigsaw puzzles fall right, Mama Grenouille would be very generous, in her means, for the information on Francois's whereabouts, and better yet if contact is established.

If the investigators are stymied, she'll be a lot less generous for news of his death. She won't be ungracious, but a reported death without a corpse or burial site just isn't much good to her.

If investigators find Francois himself, he will be cautious, but if they can win his confidence, even fairly frank. That said, he is just not a talkative person. He would gladly go back to the old bayou, if he could be sure that his family wouldn't persecute him.

A very clever and hard working team of investigators might get a follow-up job, bringing Lucille and Francois together, but it would have to be founded on some stellar social work, and Mama Grenouille would certainly get some insurance in the form of spirits watching over the runners to make sure that they didn't decide something else would be more profitable.

If you're gonna play in Texas, you've gotta have a Runner in the band.

Troy McGraw is a young man with a humble dream: to have his voice and guitar strings crooning out of the speakers in the dashboard of every pick-'em-up truck bombing down every dusty, dirt and gravel road from Georgia to California. Texas born and bred, Troy's got the voice for it, and he's hot on his six-string acoustic guitar, too. Now, Troy's not poor, nor is he insufficiently talented, but the family money's mostly gone (his inheritance was five, almost six figures,) and in the Sixth World, just having the talent to be a novahot music star doesn't guarantee drek.

You need to be good, you need to have your ducks lined up, you need your own band, and you need to be ready to fend off the corporate sharks that want to own you. Troy achieved some local stardom in his hometown of Houston, but that only resulted in the rest of his band getting poached by a megacorp who wanted him to play for them. Troy didn't bite, and now they're ready to start contemplating more aggressive measures to convince him to sing for them.

He needs some Talent, and not necessarily the musical kind. He needs professionals who can help him rustle up a band or poach his own band back from Shangri-La Productions, he needs professionals who can ensure his gigs go smooth and play to packed venues. And if any of them happen to play fiddle, well, if you're gonna play in Texas, you've gotta have a fiddle in the band.

The Job: Ongoing. Basically, the Runners have been hired to help propel Troy to stardom, to make his name such a hot property that he can dictate the terms of the contract he signs with whatever company he signs with. That may or may not be possible, but the group have an opportunity to enrich themselves and get their fill of travel around the sunny Lone Star State while they do it. There will be problems along the way: not only are Shangri-La Productions and other record labels trying to sabotage Troy's launch so they can make him their bitch, but there's just going to be plain-out problems along the way; rowdy venues where the crowd will hurl beer bottles at the band if they don't like what they're hearing (and if they do like what they're hearing,) go-gangers trying to hijack the tour bus, unscrupulous venue operators, rival bands who'll hire rival Runners to attempt to murderously end Troy's career, or disastrously end it by burning down a crowded venue or whatever.

Complications:

• As the group and Troy work together, he starts to trust them more than he trusts the other folks he should be able to trust, like his manager. This presents opportunities to betray him for significant financial gain, but is the hit to their professional reputations worth it?
• A fan comes forward claiming that her baby is Troy's. She's an orc. A cute, Texan cowgirl orc, but an orc nontheless, and this is a place where people still get skeevy about racial miscegenation, let alone metatype. Worse, Troy's an honest man, and if it turns out the child's his, he'd be thinking of making an honest woman of her, despite the massive blow that could be to his career. On the other hand, she can sing like nobody's business. How do they advise Troy to proceed? Do they even tell him, or do they handle the situation without his knowing about it?
• The manager who tried and failed to poach Troy for Shangri-La is replaced by a company shark by the name of Ari Tarkasian, and depending on whether the players have been through On the Run (and how thoroughly they investigated,) they may have baggage with him (and he them.) Ari's not going to be playing by any rules, and he's running the show from CalFree, but he won't have any qualms about sending a company team to extract Troy, or even assassinate him if extraction proves impossible!
• Go-Gangers in pickup trucks with mounted machine guns attack the tour bus between cities. Have the Runners been paying sufficient attention to vehicular safety, or could this brazen daylight assault succeed in kidnapping the star?! If Troy does get kidnapped, they'd better come down on the gangers like the hand of God to get him back, or he may not trust them anymore. If they can't get him back in short order, Troy will be handed over by the go-gangers to the highest bidder.
• Troy's no-good drunken cousin Jim-Bob McGraw saw him play on stage, and now thinks he's rich. Jim-Bob wants a modest piece of the action, but thanks to some old bad blood between them (Jimbo slept with Troy's girlfriend when they were in high school together,) Troy doesn't want anything to do with him. Unfortunately, Jimbo has some dirt on Troy that could make life very uncomfortable for him, and Troy doesn't want them to just grab Jimbo and rough him up or worse, kill him. (He may be an asshole, but he's still blood.) They either need to pay him off, discredit him, steal his proof, or figure out a way to mend the rift between the cousins; which, while difficult, would satisfy everybody, since Jimbo has the skills to be an excellent roadie, and Troy wouldn't think twice about hiring him for the road crew if they were good.
• One of the band's members Goblinizes into a Troll while on-stage! This creates a problem, as it completely disrupts his musical ability. Troy doesn't want to just cold-heartedly kick him to the curb, but his playing went to hell, even if he gets an instrument sized for his new body. The band's music suffers if he stays on, and the group need to figure out how to fix this situation without alienating Troy, such as by convincing the poor bastard that resigning from the band would be best for everyone. They'll also need to replace him, and finding a good player won't be easy.
• A rival band challenges Troy to a musical duel, and this is Texas, so Troy can't refuse or he'll lose face. Troy wants to play a clean show, but the other group sure as hell won't. How far will the group go: will they just foil the other band's hired guns and let Troy and his band face the other group fairly, or will they try to go a step further and try to sabotage the other side and make it look like an accident (or a backfire of their own sabotage attempts.)

Pushing the Envelope:

• Troy's hit it big in the Lone Star State, and now the act needs to expand out of Texas. Plan A is a tour of the CAS, and Plan B is to try and reintroduce Country & Western to the southwestern NAN, where there's certainly enough pinkskins and disillusioned Natives ready to listen to the songs Troy's ready to sing. The riskier the road, the greater the profit; Troy's voice would be very welcome in the CAS, but the market's already saturated with old-school Country & Western, whereas he could be a breakout hit in the NAN, but would likely face backlash from hardliners NANners who don't want a stetson-wearing cowboy in their lands.
  
• Ari Tarkasian has had it with opportunities slipping through his grasp, and decides to play super-dirty. He goes after the group's contacts, family, whatever and whoever they care about back home, and presents them an ultimatum: hand over Troy so he can be made an offer he can't refuse, or their loved ones get organlegged. To show he's serious, he actually goes and hands over one of the group's contacts or family members to Tanamous and films the exchange so there's zero doubt he's playing for keeps here. Now it's personal. They could hand over Troy, but if they tell him what's going on, he'll take it personally too, since he's come to think of the group as silent partners in the band, and an attack on one is an attack on all. They could try to expose him to his corporate overlords at Horizon, for whom his tactics are far beyond the pale and they would rectify the situation, or they could decide that blood demands blood and travel to the California Free State for old-school Biblical retribution.
  
• The group's excellent work has gotten attention, and their Fixer calls to tell them they've got big offers on tap, bigger even than the now-financially-secure and heading-to-stardom Troy can pay. Do they part ways amicably with Troy, rustling up some other talent for him, or decide to hang on to a cushy gig and ride the tour bus to prosperity?

Still loving these. I was considering getting in on the act myself but I've ended up busy with a bunch of RL stuff...

Make the runners steal a road?

I like the musical story. Kind of brings back memories of first edition. Misty, fond memories.

Sorry I haven't been around much, but I had this were-cougar eating my cockatrices ...

I have a few more bouncing around my head, but I wanted to ask:

Any GM reports back on running any of these, or variants which worked? Or failed to work? Don't keep your success (or shame) a secret.

We won't judge you, much.

Background:

Worker rights, unions, and all that good stuff can turn a quiet neck of the woods into a battleground. Robotics and production economics make it all worse. Don't they always?

The parties:

Shenandoah Agricultural Workers' Cooperative, or SAWC. They are a group of poor hard working folks, mostly ork and troll, who sweat in the heat, freeze in the cold, and get paid a little less than the running costs of equivalent robots. Now the workers are getting a little sick of how they're treated, and really angry about their robotic competition.

Pittsburgh Steel and Machine. PSM is a fairly large corporation, though nowhere near the corporate court, but they license many technologies and put together some very impressive agricultural automation tools. They will till your fields, pick your berries, inspect your plants, chew up your pests and even collect your cow pies.

Shenandoah Valley Farm Bureau. Many farmers (the few independent holdouts as well as corporate representatives) in the area have joined what amounts to a trade association. They share knowledge, negotiate for good collective insurance rates and lobby the government together.



The problem:

Same as always, and fresh as ever. It's the sixth world peasant's rebellion against the landholders. Orks and trolls are good in the fields because of their muscle, and because they tend to have a hard time getting work elsewhere. They want more money (although the robots are nipping at their heels in financial terms), better working conditions (not easy to arrange, to say the least) and less competition from the robots (a lost cause if ever there was one). By any measure of trends, they're cornered by history and physical reality.

The Farm Bureau's members run the gamut of luxury producers to simple hardscrabble folks who barely hang on. None of them want to pay more for anything if they can help it, and while some could afford more, they are united in adamant opposition to the SAWC.

PSM are the wild card. Ostensibly, they are disinterested parties just leasing and selling their robots to their customers, through a network of local representatives, but in actual fact they have been planting the seeds of rebellion in the SAWC. Not by anything as straightforward as agents pushing their agenda, but through the offices of RCSI (Renraku Corporate Security Intelligence) which have infiltrated the Matrix hangouts of the SAWC and suggested to them what they might, could and should do. Why? Because unstable work forces make for great robotic sales!

The proposition:

There are two propositions available here.

The first is obvious: the Farm Bureau wants the runners to do security for the robots against raids by the farm workers. They don't want a bloodbath, because that's bad for public relations, but they want the disgruntled workers dissuaded. This is actually arguably legal owing to the possible food safety implications.

The second is less obvious: the local sheriff isn't a fool, and wants the sources of the unrest sniffed out. This is a suitable run for more sophisticated runners, because whoever does this is likely to end up face to face with Renraku.

The facts:

It's really pretty simple. The farm workers are angry, strong, and motivated by their own hungry children. The fact that they aren't very experienced at this business, and aren't thinking clearly, is only going to complicate matters.

Renraku's goons have been smart enough to quietly sell the farm workers some instruments of destruction as well, along the lines of WP and thermite bombs for sabotage work - a little more cash in the bag, and increasing the level of threat involved.

Some complications:

Maybe the farm workers don't stop at robots, and target some farmers.

Maybe the farm workers get some support from urban unions acting in solidarity.

Maybe the farm workers have family members who are runners too, and are calling in a few favours.

Maybe it's a slow news week and the valley is crawling with trid camera crews.

Aftermath ideas:

Renraku doesn't love you any more! Well, maybe they have a new reason not to.

PSM doesn't like being found out, and makes sure that the runners have an offer on some kit which is way too good to ignore, and turns out to be sabotaged, or sending surveillance back to the mothership.

Maybe the runners decided to back the workers, and the sheriff, the Bureau, PSM and Renraku are all upset. Oh dear.

Up the working mantrog!


This could get plenty complicated, because this could easily cross from just a labor issue to a racial issue - I'd be willing to bet nuyen to AZT corporate scrip that less than one in twenty of the members of the SVFB have tusks or horns. While I don't think the Spikes extend out that far, there's probably similar trog gangs in local 'plexes. You fire up the working man and the disaffected urban trog both and convince them they both have a common enemy in the face of big industry, and shit will be going down.

Hell, if the SVFB is primarily human, or if the Renraku/PSM connection comes out early, you might even see the Ancients getting in on the action in the name of "fuck the breeders," and happily selling at a good rate to poor trogs.


If the runners played their cards right and were sufficiently neo-A or neo-commie, or just labor-friendly, they could turn this clusterfuck into an all-out race-relations and labor-relations nightmare up and down the eastern seaboard of north America. I bet they could find a way to make money out of that. A good labor riot or lightning strike is a great way to draw attention from someplace you want to get in and out of quietly - and then blowing up or setting aflamee the place you got in and out of quietly is an even greater way to draw attention back from the workin' stiffs.

The last run idea is aweseome!

Danke sehr. Hoffentlich finden Sie diese Ideen auch gut:

Background:

Old Europe is a complex place. The destruction which reigned in the birth of the Sixth World was both new and as ancient as the armies of the ancient world tearing bloody swaths across the hills and fields and forests of what maps now call Europe. Some other things remain constant: the need to eat, and the profits and power available in controlling the food supply.

Sadly (but profitably, for shadowrunners) there are many sources of conflict - nationalism is a constant undercurrent, sometimes manifesting in naked bigotry - but of all of them need and want are the strongest. To large corporations which wield propaganda and financial power, this means control for as long as they can keep riding the tiger. It also means that they keep a tight grip on their farming operations, for all the most obvious reasons.

The parties:

NeuHund AG is a family corporation in what is known in English as Pomerania. Years ago they were pioneers in extremely high quality cyberhounds for police and military use, but the insatiable demand for their products has given them the capital to expand into a number of related lines. They have developed an experimental farm in which they are extending the idea of permaculture into what they are branding as CyberHof. They claim massive conversion ratios of incident sunlight into desirable results. Be clear: the security around Cyberhof is utterly deadly, as would be expected from a custom maker of cyberdogs. Their own guards are boosted intelligence dogs with cybereyes, cyberears, bone lacing, modified hearts, livers, adrenal glands and all the rest of it. One of their trademarks: their dogs don't audibly bark. Runners who aren't careful will have just about zero warning before a 130kg cyborg, running at 60km/h, makes contact. And it will just be the first of the pack. Runners who make it into the farm will find themselves surrounded by flora and fauna of extremely high voracity and lethality. NeuHund is a pioneer in selective breeding for awakened traits. They have a herd of Gorgons, which crops grass so sharp it will cut feet - and mobile enough to carve up flesh deliberately to feed its ravenous roots. They have modified ficus with trailing roots which turn into grasping tendrils. The dessicated husks of incautious animals can sometimes be seen dangling there. The cockatrices have learned to avoid the roots, and instead scratch and strut in the rose bushes, which put out soporific pollen. Somehow the pollen doesn't affect them. NeuHund's major advances related to management techniques (largely robotic) allowing for a good harvest from this otherwise lethal zone, but their advances are not yet market ready. Still, they make a good bit of cash off it to support their research.

Baltic Harvest is a russian corporation which makes most of its money in kelp, krill, and anything else it can extract from the seas (mostly, but not exclusively the baltic). They are trying to settle a number of problems relating to how they perform their harvest, and they are also struggling against competition while they try to expand throughout Central Europe. They have a few brands - Baltic Harvest is a name mostly seen on prepackaged foods in the lower strata of society, but they have a few luxury lines related to real fish, caviar and so on.

The problem:

This is a big corporate problem, not an individual farming situation. NeuHund and Baltic Harvest had a contract, under which NeuHund would modify and train dolphins and sharks and seals to do harvest and security work for Baltic Harvest. NeuHund's management started to get suspicious when they discovered that Baltic Harvest showed little interest in the efficiency of the results, but paid through the nose for the highest technology, and were more interested in getting a couple of each, rather than a full working team. They found a fixer who got them confirmation of their suspicions: Baltic Harvest wanted to leapfrog their technical position by purchasing examples for reverse engineering.

Baltic Harvest didn't choose NeuHund randomly: NeuHund is a technical leader, but also something of a political flagship run by people who are openly patriotic, german nationalists. By giving NeuHund a black eye, Baltic Harvest would be in a position to extract a lot more kudos from the powers inside Holy Mother Russia. In this way the corporations are proxies for national conflicts.

NeuHund went to court and secured a cancellation of the contract, as well as damages for Baltic Harvest's behaviour. At this stage, NeuHund's management have made the rather stiff-necked assumption that the matter is closed, and they have moved on. Baltic Harvest, on the other hand, have done no such thing and their management are smarting from their losses, from frustration at their failure, and not least from the perceived insult of the judgement against them. They have now started fishing for fixers who can get them teams with specialised skills.

The proposition:

"My clients are an environmental group - the details are confidential, of course - but they are very worried about the consequences of genetic manipulation on the part of NeuHund AG. They require samples. If you can obtain whole animals, that is better. If you can obtain cybernetically modified animals, that is yet better. Accepting the contract means that you will obtain data on their security, quite comprehensive, as well as ten thousand nuyen worth of sampling and management equipment for your use, and to keep afterwards, in case you may find it useful."

"My clients do not have limitless financial means, but the genetic health of Europe is reason enough to open their coffers. What is required is information on genetic codes, and where relevant, chemical or cybernetic modifications to lifeforms. Anything could be indicative of the threats. Shall we say, two thousand per sample, five thousand per complete plant and ten thousand per complete animal?"

The facts:

The security information is pretty decent, but any experienced shadowrunner should regard this as a near-suicidal run. The problem they have is that their employers will probably keep a grudge, and definitely object to the runners pulling out. It's crystal clear that whoever is hiring them wouldn't think twice about sending a cleanup team after them, so they can either face a stream of assassins, or face death at cyberhound jaws. This is a very difficult scenario, intended for cunning and creative runners. The fact that pretty much any lifeform on that farm is potentially lethal and is not meaningfully domesticable, means that just walking up and taking tissue samples is not going to work.

The best bet is for a combination of smart work by riggers, matrix operatives, and possibly magicians. This will require planning, timing, and not a little luck.

During negotiations, Johnson is happy to let the runners bid him up, although he'll make a show of driving a hard bargain, since Baltic Harvest does not envision actually paying in full.

Some complications:

NeuHund have developed cybersecurity in the form of black IC run by rat brains. The brains do the decision making, the IC eats matrix intruders. Light on electronics, powerful in effect. Since the rats train in their own death arena using nonlethal IC to practice their techniques, it's a frighteningly effective mass defence. CyberHof is well-named.

Baltic Harvest's donated equipment includes trackers, monitors, and other supplementary goodies to check up on the runners.

NeuHund have developed insects tough enough to survive their farm, fertilise their flowers, and territorial enough to kill intruders. Simple, basic, but lethal.

Baltic Harvest intend to kill the runners anyway so as to leave fewer traces, and give any credit to russian researchers.

Aftermath ideas:

NeuHund has scent traces of the runners, and a lot of dogs. Can you run fast enough? Can you hide well enough? There is a german word which describes how they will search for intruders: grundlich.

Baltic Harvest may frame the runners, assuming they escape the planned death, for any number of hideous crimes across the length and breadth of Russia. Why not? It would discredit the runners, or so they hope.

I just realised that I never answered this question.

Boris has the Perforated Condoms doing the drop-off for the runners, for no other reason than that the package is bogus, and he wants a little distance between himself and the hand-off. The Perforated Condoms, being go-gangers, are chronically short of cash, so a couple of thousand Nuyen for a simple run and dump is welcome. Boris has nothing against them, but doesn't think highly of them. He just wants a big distraction, and it's easy to blame distractions on them because they're flashy. The idea is to deflect blame from him.

Going to be running some of these in the near future as our group finally got around to finishing S3 Missions and as the players are a bunch of paranoid loons they don't trust anyone to ship their gear to Seattle and thus are going on a road trip.

Awesome. Let me know how that goes. I think I gave a few run ideas adaptable to most environments. Desert, hills, forest, mountain country. Have fun with it.

God damn it! I'll deffinitely take tis one and the others to my DH chronicle!!!
Thank you! Awesome!

All I ask in return is after action reports. That way we can all be better GMs.

I'll do it this sunday, so you'll get it pretty soon))

I kindly ask to forgive my grammar and style as English is not my native language))



Maybe I'm writing it not so soon, but the game itself was really fast and ugly!

Well… I ran the

mission , adjusted to DH campaign last sunday.

Just a small side mission that turned out into something… something.

Group was on a backwater world - their spaceship was damaged and waiting for delivery of some rare part from a nearby industrial planet. In the spaceport they heard a rumor of a lumberjack, who complained on voices in his head which he heard after having worked for some time in a specific area.

Lumber from that specific area was delivered to the spaceport by sea once a year in a large trawler “Vulpa Veritas”, was picked by a passing by merchant space ship and then delivered to some gentry-planets, where fletchers created masterpieces of wood-carving or just ceilings out of it. Just for some extra thrill and to kill some time (and possibly, extra heretics) the Group gathered everything they might need (survival gear, gasmasks, weapons, armour and ammo) and headed to the seaport.

It was the rain-season so the trip was quite rough. In the sea they encountered the trawler spoken above. It was nailed to a shoal right near delta of the river, by which it travelled to the chopping area. From the trawler latrine they got a SOS signal and decided to board. Being pretty experienced they equipped with bolters, torches, flash-bangs, polarized googols, smoke grenades and gasmasks they entered the bridge of the ship.

At least they tried to. It was locked from the inside. After breaking the door they found the captain, who had destroyed the controls and killed himself outlandishly – covered himself in ship fuel and light it up. In the board journal the only words that survived the flames were “I deny such an end” . They proceeded to the cargo hold. All they found there were some dead bodies but they definitely didn’t like the way those people died – killing each other in really gore-some ways just a couple of days ago. Not really willing to step in someone’s teeth-torn apdomen, the Group moved in the direction of the latrine.

Then they noticed something… None of them was sure what or who it was, but – just in case - bullets started flying… And bolter “bullets” – that’s something that thin cargohold walls are not gonna endure. They hit the fuel tank and had about 30 seconds to get to the latrine, find a living integrated-filter-breathing clancking thech-adept there, jump to the sand-beach. And run away. Really fast. After several explosions the trawler burned with all possible clues. And lumber))

//As it had been planed)//

The tech adept’s version of events was clear: illness, mutiny, fight, he took cover, the ship stranded, the door jammed and he had no tools to rip it open – ha was in the very beginning of the mechanicus evolution chain.

They got back to their ship, sailed up the river to the area 241, where, according to the rumors, a month ago or so one of the lumberjacks heard some voices. They got into the woodchoppers’ hut and found the majority of the workers missing. Locals saw the tech-man and thought them to be representatives of mechanicus, who recently were hired by the landlord to increase the rate of wood-cutting, as a large part of the workers got ill and were sent to the hospital with the last visit of “Vulps Veritas”. So the locals, drunk, some of them already hearing voices as well, attacked the group. It’s a miracle, how much fuss a man with a flamethrower can do in a wooden hut))) Pure intimidation was enough.

Of course, some of the lumberjacks turned out to be badly ill – their lungs were corrupted with an unknown (to the group surgeon) bacteria or worse. The others were more than willing to show the way to the tech-priests’ and their lumber-servitors’ site or to the current wood-cutting area. The Group chose the second option. Not even bothering to eat or drink as nobody wanted to put the mask off.

When they got to the point they found a tech-priest and his servitors cutting the wood and some local tribesmen intently watching them. The tribesmen didn’t like the “dead in the woods” and thought servitors were the reason for spirits of the forest to curse the lumberjacks and the tribesmen by cerebral illness and insanity. Sort investigation in the traditions of the tribesmen proved their cult of The Great Emperor Galactic Star Tree legit and approved by all Imperial standards.

So they took samples of water, soil and samples of wood - by sawing up a trunk. That’s when they found that the majority of trees only seemed healthy, being rotten deep inside in the middle of the trunks – unnoticeably to the eyes of wood-cutters. And what if a year supply of this planet was delivered to different highly populated planets???...

//my mistake – I tried to leave in only on a local level, so it shouldn’t have been about interstellar lumber export, it would better have been some kind of local county or planet-government villas matter//

They applied to the local mechanicus in order to find the means of learning, for how long was this bacteria active, what is its incubation period in trees and in humans, is id infectious through human means or only through trees… Mechanicus promised to study the matted urgently. Then they applied to the planet government, secretly informing it about spread of trees and men disease in the area 241. Government was more concerned about future of their export income. At that time their ship had received the parts and had finished the repair procedures. They returned to the sheep.

The Group thought for a while…

There was no chance to learn about all the areas where the mushroom or bacteria was active without the government’s help.
They considered government to be too greedy to reveal true information, especially if the scale was wide.

Mechanicus finished the research and came to the conclusion that the disease was the result of a mushroom – some rare variation of a mushroom spread in the area 241 of the tropical-subtropical part of the planet (about 10 000 000 acres); it was dangerous to people but did not spread from human to human, and it was vulnerable to cold. Its incubation period was about one year with faster passing in case of constant presence of the cause. The only thing they could not understand – if it was a mutation of some local flora, extraterrestrial microorganism or genetically tailored weapon.

The group said “Sorry!” to the planet government, evacuated the mechanicus from the area 241 of the forest belt, gave a week to evacuate other woodcutters, took into consideration approximate speed of the mushroom spreading… And zapped the area of 100 000 000 acres from the orbit by macrobatteries and lance fire!

Hoo-ba-doo-ba-doo, amigos!!!

The ashe clouds raised and covered both hemispheres’ sky causing too-big-camp-firе winter. The temperature dropped below zero throughout the planet, chilling the sleek asses of planet gov and, probably frustrating tribesmen and jacks! And killing the mushroom everywhere on the planet)))

Should I say that their chef was not really happy about all that? Still, the slyboots managed to represent all this as the only possible way of solving the problem.

Safe, assured, secure – guaranteed!

Redneck?
No, not really. Sorry))
True DH WH40k?!
Yes, it definitely is, sir!!!

Background:

It really doesn't matter who you are in the countryside, varmints are varmints. To farmers, they're crop ruining, livestock raiding varmints. To hunters, they're game displacing, cover ruining varmints. To gardeners, they're flower munching, root grubbing varmints. To technicians, they're wire chewing, culvert nesting varmints.

Except for a few crazy bunnyhuggers who feed the adorable little rascals.

The Parties:

Just north of the border with the CAS, halfway between the coasts, lies some highly productive farmland. Some people consider it to be boring miles upon miles of soy and corn and whatever else they pick to grow, but the fact is that the world eats because of these places. Most of the land has been snapped up by megacorps who want to make sure that their pet sararimen are first at the trough. The farms are actually run by more sararimen, who just happen to be highly specialised in their fields. The modern farmer is half roboticist, half biologist, and corporate backed.

Maxine Venables is a fairly typical case. In her younger days, she was a rigger for DocWagon, but the lousy hours and stressful environment gradually wore her down. She studied up on plant biology and animal husbandry instead of human, and persuaded her employers to upgrade her rig as technology advanced. Finally she moved laterally into rigging a farm rather than a flying ambulance. She is now in her late forties, and a spokesperson for local farmers. They don't all work for the same corps, but that doesn't matter. They share some concerns and cooperate to face challenges which crop up.

Morningblossom Canarysong Starseed is one of the very few independent farmers left. She's a wiccan magical practitioner, but also the only daughter of a farming family, who inherited everything. She is utterly dedicated to incredibly high quality organic farming, and her farm is a veritable temple - just a highly productive one. She knows Maxine and they actually get along quite well. She affectionately calls Maxine a farming cyborg, while Maxine calls her a filthy barefoot hippie. Their methods are different, their approaches are different, but there's a lot of mutual respect.

The void. The void isn't particularly literal - it's an ecological void. Apex predators have vanished from the area, which means that the largest predator around is the coyote. Raccoons, possums, skunks, armadillos, porcupines, and dozens of other species both native and invasive have descended upon the productive belt with nothing on their minds but gluttony. Deer populations are at all-time highs, feral pigs roam the landscape rooting up anything they feel like rooting up (which is everything). Rats, pigeons, starlings, you name it.

The Problem:

In the big picture, it's your classic trophic cascade at work. No wolves? No cougars? No big raptors? The smaller critters get busy. Not much in the way of human hunting any more? It's a furry wonderland, and that is bad for business.

The local tribe, a group known as the Broken Antlers, don't care about the problems too much. Their main reaction is that the hunting is good, and paleface farmers need to stop whining. The palefaces are the real vermin here. Trouble is, this is the UCAS and while the Broken Antlers are tolerated, they hold little effective power. So they are frustrated, bound by laws they dislike, and generally angry.

The Proposition:

"Look, you're around here for a while, right? Every varmint corpse your crew brings me, twenty-five nuyen. No fooling. No maximum. Bring me five thousand? A hundred and twenty-five thousand nuyen. Birds? One nuyen apiece. You won't stop the problem, but you might get us some production back this year at least."

The Facts:

The runners could pick off a few varmints, make a few hundred nuyen and call it good. And why not?

Or they could work out that the varmints are way too fat and densely populated for the area, and that someone is feeding the hell out of these varmints. There are other tell-tales, like yellow stripes on skunks. Yellow stripes happen because of skunks which eat a lot of cat or dog food, rather than their usual diet.

The real problem is that the Broken Antlers have become corrupted by their medicine men: Singing Wolverine is the leader of them all, but Jumping Armadillo, Dancing Roadrunner and Lonely Dove are all behind him and all toxic. Yup, a circle of toxic shamans with a whole tribe as their followers. They deliberately worked with the spirits to locally extirpate apex predators. They perform rituals which are intended to produce awakened animals, and they feed the varmints on dog food, on carrion, on whatever they can find with the goal of driving the farmers out of business.

Some Complications:

Under the hood, this is a race war with biology used as a weapon. Rabid raccoons are every bit as nasty as smallpox, in their own way. And rabies is an ugly, ugly way to die.

An awakened skunk is basically impossible to keep out of anywhere, and almost impossible to shoot if you're puking your guts out because you were downwind of it. And if it's downwind of you? It knows you're there, dumbass.

The Broken Antlers are not above engaging some of the greener (and stupider) policlubs as interference if the runners get too successful.

Aftermath Ideas:

If the runners succeed? They'd darned well better have wiped out the whole tribe because the fact is that this is a problem which can recur all the time. The tribe is beyond any kind of return to human rationality. They worship a toxic totem, whether they're magically aware or not.

If the runners fail? Nobody's going to be impressed. This is a great way of taking down a team which thinks their reputation is untouchable.

What happens if the awakened critters start multiplying and entering urban areas? Or hell, just ordinary ones? You can't run away from this problem. It's in your conduits, chewing on your cables.

Background:

"Ah 'member, when Zeke was still alive, how we'd go down to that ol' dam and throw in our lines. We useta bet, which one'f us would get to wrassle with ol' Whirlpool. He wuz a catfish, but he was a catfish the way a cougar is a kittycat. We called him Whirlpool for the way the water would swirl in when we tossed bread on the water and he'd come up and open up his jaws to eat.

"Anyways, now them company men wanta catch him for their fish farm. Don't seem right. Whirlpool oughta go down fightin', pullin' a fisherman in to drown, not miltin' out for millions of farm fry. Don't seem right to me, an' ol' Zeke woulda said so too."

The Parties:

The dam is a dam shared between three farms, because of old water rights and easements. It sits in a valley high in eastern Kentucky, just the way it has for over a hundred years. The farms now belong to different companies, but the water rights were sold along with the farms, so nothing really changed. If anything, the farm managers have been more scrupulous about maintenance than before.

Bluegrass Ventures, GriTeFo and Bubbles Aquaculture are the three farming companies in question. Bluegrass Ventures is connected to megacorps (Horizon and Ares) through ownership of a parent company, but the others aren't connected to any megas.

The local population is not concentrated, but dotted about in little villages here and there. There simply are no large settlements for at least a hundred miles. If you want to meet people, go to church or hang around the tack and feed, or bait and tackle stores.

The Problem:

Bubbles Aquaculture is a small outfit, which is combining greenhouses with fish farming in a virtuous and productive cycle. This is arguably good from a sustainability perspective, but the appearance of greenhouses and laying of concrete tanks rubs some of the locals the wrong way. Now they want to catch the best fish from the dam to seed their tanks, and while they've had some success, it's getting to be controversial. Fishing rights were always generally viewed as an incidental public prerogative, but never formally established, and while neither Bluegrass Ventures or GriTeFo give a damn about the fish, they're not happy that Bubbles Aquaculture is apparently pissing off the locals.

But by the letter of the law, Bubbles isn't doing anything wrong.

All Sentients Rights Organisation got word of the situation from the Matrix, and you will be completely amazed to hear that they decided that this was a situation which could only be improved by their direct involvement. They sent a small team of hard core activists, armed with small arms, to take out the evil exploiters. They're dithering about an actual frontal assault on Bubbles, but they haven't ruled it out yet. Funnily enough, nobody wants them there at all.

The Proposition:

Bubbles wants a fish. A big, sly, slippery, cunning old fish. Not awakened, but well over a hundred pounds. In his lips are a few old fishing hooks, with broken lines trailing from them.

Everyone else wants Bubbles out of business. The other farms don't want their attitude known, because it's bad for businesses to turn on each other, but annoying the locals is also bad for business. The locals want Bubbles out, because they're interfering with what is seen as a tradition. They're not poisoning the water, or tearing down old growth forests - they're just trying to catch a fish. The wrong fish.

This whole thing could come from multiple sides. ASRO might even try to hire the runners to do their dirty work.

The Facts:

It's pretty straightfoward. Bubbles has a team of fish wranglers trying to net Whirlpool. Whirlpool doesn't want to be netted. Nobody else is supporting them, and ASRO is occasionally taking potshots at the guys with the nets because they get wood every time their guns go off at bad people. Of course, it would help if they knew how to aim.

Some Complications:

A carp shaman is an obvious complication which adds a certain outraged je ne sais quoi.

Bubbles might be placated with genetic material from Whirlpool, with which they could clone him.

ASRO might have crossed swords with the runners before, and find them a more entertaining target for serious conflict than farmers.

Aftermath Ideas:

If the runners don't run exemplary personal information security on their front, they could easily (depending on the side they pick) find themselves publically painted as being responsible for keeping food out of the mouths of starving orphans, or personally responsible for the rape of Gaia.

After-Action report, part 1: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1291275

The setup: The Runners are escorting a shipment of mysterious but highly valuable stuff in two vehicles, both courtesy of Johnson - an RV and an SUV. The wares are hidden somewhere within the vehicles. The scenery is changed a bit, as in it's just inside the Sioux Nation, with half the protagonists Sioux citizens and half from the nearby Pierce-Willoow Creek Reservation, including Maxine (who used to work for DocWagon in the nearby Lincoln-Omaha Conurbation).

The runners are on the run, since a hillbilly gang jacked their cars the other day posing as police officers, in a way that strongly hinted that the hillbillies had inside knowledge of their route and location. They suspect there's a mole in Johnson's crew (hint: that's not the problem) and have taken to back roads and crumbling freeways to drive as off the radar as possible.

The problem: On their first rest near Maxine's farm (owned by Meridional Agronomics), a few varmints - I have taken the Electric Marten from Parazoology for it's additional love of frying technology that it mistakes as delicious technocritters - took out both cars. Subsequently, the runners were stranded, and Maxine had a drone roll over to make them an offer.

The offer: "Look, your vehicles are fucked up, right? Say, I offer you use of my repair shop, and 25 bucks for each head of one of these pests. Bring me five thousand? A hundred and twenty-five thousand nuyen. And a bonus 1000 each if you find out where they're from."

The proceedings: Initially tracking down burrow after burrow, they soon started to just use commlinks as decoys and kill the critters. 31 in an hour. This got those with Survival skill thinking. They were reasonably sure most of them had migrated from Morningblossom's farm, so they went to investigate. After turning down free weed, but accepting the all-vegan dinner stew, they sat down and talked. Morningblossom knew the pests started showing up a month ago and came from a nearby shrubland, where the Broken Antlers tribe had it's territorry. Next session they'll investigate the antlers!

Additional Background and Changes: A minority pinkskin tribe, the Broken Antlers in my game weren't exactly the darlings of Cheyenne, so they got a shit deal, land-wise, and are upset. they're even more upset the Sioux government is letting a pinkskin company (Meridional is actually Italo-Arab, but they don't really discriminate there) farm land they consider rightfully theirs, though it is an Oglala holding in fact, and decided to rid the Earth Mother of this stain. they also aren't really fond of Moningblossom (a half-Lakota) and her co-workers/hippie commune because they do the Indian thing wrong, but the mechanized farms of Meitional? No way. Other than that, they're toxic because their lands are toxic, and have come to appreciate it that way.

Morningblossom is the daughter of a wealthy and influential tribal shaman and to daddy's chagrin a wiccan practitioner following the Great Mother. She did take over the old family farm that's been in their family from way back (the family has toughed it out as Indian farmers throughout the US, until they were forcibly relocated, and after the NAN's founding re-claimed their farm and lands, soiled as it was). Morningblossom has done her best to cleanse the land, with some help from the government and her tribe, but most of the land still is poisoned, courtesy of the Ressource Rush's fracking in the area.

Maxine is an employee of Meridional Agronomics, and has reasonably good, thouggh lightly strained, relations with Morningblossom. there's mutual respect, but each lives in their own world the other cannot really understand.

Thank you! I like the flavours you added. There's obviously a well-realised vision behind them, and I look forward to the next report.

After-Action Report, part 2: http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...t&p=1291275

The setup: Having fought electric martens and aq couple other critters, the runners had found Morningblossom's farm. Indeed, Morningblossom had seen where the critters came from - Broken Antlers territorry. After staying a night at the hippie farm (which involved smoking the fine Chicago Grey they grow - one character said no to drugs and got herself thoroughly pissed instead - and a bit of adult proceedings for some characters), the runners are ready to go and explore the hell out of the broken antlers. And by explore, I mean shoot and get shot up.

The proceedings: The scouting runners soon found more martens (killed them dead) and then saw three greater thunderbirds rise - which they promptly took down. Three birdsplosions later, they're in the shrubby woodlands that is the toxin-soaked territorry of the antlers (courtesy of a Freedom Industries fracking-chemical storage facility a SAIM cell flattened in the Ghost Dance War - Freedom Industries is such an unbelievably cheesy name).

And then, a sniper shoots the mage into overflow. Failed surprise tests are a bitch.

I gained a lot of respect for the Springfield Arms M1A here. The sniper used a modded M1A (from GH 3). The sam critically failed his composure test for impulsiveness and spent the turn hosing down shrubberies and yelling things like "SHOW YOURSELF YOU MOTHERFUCKING DREKFACE". Vicky the adept managed to evade the second shot, but was downed next phase (though not fatally, the player just said he wouldn't resist knockdown). The sam, now managing his composure, takes a look, spots the sniper and downs him, then finds out his gun only has 7 ammo, oh no! Sniper-guy isn't out yet, but Vicky kills him in the end.

They find out the guy (who was wearing a post-apoc ghillie suit and had some toxic awakened compounds, which they looted off him as well as the M1A) is indeed one of the antlers, so now it's war. They treat their mage the turn before his overflow runs out and manage to stabilize him, then head off to Morningblossom, where he is patched up.

Next session will be very combat heavy, I think. A stand in a frontier farmhouse that is under attack by vicious, evil tribals. A true Western classic. Very much looking forward to that.

Additional Background and Changes: I decided to give the Antlers some more creep, and sicne I recently binge-watched True Detective, and their name ... it kinds fell together. I decided the toxic cabal is worshipping a doom-like but also pestilence-like hybrid mentor along the lines of the Yellow King, and aside from destroying the machine farm out of spite they want to raid Morningblossom's place anyway, though the arrival of the runners has hastened their plans considerably. Still, they have a bunch of cultists (tribals) at hand, and serious mojo to back them up.

Maxine can call in a fast response team (really Knight-errant mercs Meridional subcontracted, because they don't have the military manpower to cover every damn remote farm). She will very much need to, I think.

Chicago Grey plays a certain role in Maxine's cleansing efforts; she sells it to get necessary cash, and it drains heavy metals from the soil. Plus, they really like weed.

It just gets better and better.

Gun geek note: the .308 round is a very serious antipersonnel round, and with modern medicine even immediate medical care is still not foolproof at saving people who've been shot. It's still quite effective out to hundreds of yards, and against unarmoured targets it's a credible contender at 1000 yards and more, in the hands of a good shot. So yes, assuming Shadowrun medical care and body armour, this is a very credible outcome.

At ridiculous ranges (over a mile) I'd either take a .338 or a .50, or even for the old school buffalo hunters out there, a .45-70. But that is, as I say, ridiculous. At that point coriolis forces are playing a measurable role in trajectory.

Background:

"Hey, big fella. Gonna party tonight? Oh yeah, I wanna party with you. I see you checking the girls out. They get so lonely sometimes, just need a man like you and his strong hands to hold them. Ah-ah-ah, not out here. Daddy'll see, and he gets real mad if we give freebies. I got a trailer back there, or you can park your truck round the back. Either way's fine by me. Especially since you got that fur in your seats. Is that real? It looks so soft."

The Parties:

Big Daddy (human) runs the Chick Ranch, finest comfort service west of the Mississippi. The girls (and a few boys) are clean, inspected, professional and fitted with the best personafixes, in some cases, money can buy. And Big Daddy has a lot of money.

Doc Mendez runs the local cyberclinic. She's a doctor, she's human, she's competent, but she has the personality of a long haul truck and the bedside manner of an angry skunk. She's an utterly militant, hard line female supremacist. She hates Big Daddy beyond all reason, but realises that screwing him up will do his employees a lot of harm. She sticks around because if she leaves, all the whores have no medical care beyond a half broken autodoc system. She is one very conflicted doctor.

The Problem:

Big Daddy has a labour dispute on his hands. No, not unionisation or anything like that - just a few girls who want to moonlight by recording their business transactions and selling the result in sim (or BTL) form.

The main thing holding it up, out here at the best truck stop whore shop in the middle of nowhere, is a lack of a hookup for distribution, and Big Daddy realises that this will change the moment the chicks find the right trucker. This is a problem because he realises that the business still runs on confidentiality, so recording of any kind is a complete business killer.

The Proposition:

"Listen, I don't want rough stuff. 'Kay? Out here reputation lasts forever and the pool is small. Lotsa girls are here because the options for making money are limited, and most of 'em make more money bending over a desk than they could make behind one. I'm their security, I'm their business manager, and they know it. I need an expert to stop this crazy scheme because the moment it gets running? The gig is up. I'm out of work, they're out of work, or they're freelancing and that's real dangerous."

The Facts:

Big Daddy's chicks are not slaves. Not even the ones with personafix setups - although they use personafixes for a number of reasons, some (un)healthier than others. There are the ones who want money, but can't contemplate doing the whoring as themselves. The personafix makes it so that they check out for a while, and collect money afterwards. There are the ones who just aren't very good, personality-wise, and they make more money with it. But a competent customer service approach actually earns the ones without a personafix more money. A personafix only goes so far.

Big Daddy also offered employment to a few local trolls, who would rather bounce creeps than toss haybales on farms. They're well armed, they're tough, and Big Daddy just doesn't have a lot of problems with idiots.

Big Daddy actually is not the heartless pimp of fiction - he actually cares about the welfare of his employees, although he does look out for Number One when the chips are down. He's just more experienced than the hookers, and he spent a long time in the Barrens around Seattle learning the ropes before he got out. He knows what's at stake here, and doesn't want the whole deal going sour because a few short-sighted people got greedy. The presence of his business helps support a cyberclinic nearby, and a few other businesses. The brothel is a commercial anchor.

Doc Mendez is watching Big Daddy like a hawk, just waiting for him to break a law so that she can put him out of business and use a lawsuit to redistribute the cash to the whores, but he's actually pretty scrupulous, and not just because of her. This is why she actually grits her teeth and maintains the prosthetics, cosmetics and augmentations which keep the business running. That said, she'd do what the girls want in terms of installing recording equipment in a hot minute, because in her view if a few redneck manpigs get recorded porking some woman and paying for it, they probably should be pubically ridiculed.

Some Complications:

A Vory pimp from the coast sees a great opportunity to cut in - if he can just get rid of Big Daddy.

The whores approach the runners as well, hoping to distribute recordings through them. Or to make some very specific scenarios.

Big Daddy is running out of time. His heart is failing, and Doc Mendez refuses to give him a cybernetic replacement, or to grow another. He wants another doctor, but doesn't want to leave the area for fear of what people will get up to in his absence. All this stress is bad for the heart ...

Aftermath Ideas:

Hey, maybe it all goes great! Free service for life!

Maybe free alibis, or a trailer to doss down in.

Maybe the runners got recorded, and the recordings went out.

Maybe the Vory is happy - or not so happy. Business is hard.

Maybe the runners helped the Vory get in, but now they realise the girls are not doing as well. Do they have pangs of conscience?

Not sure how I am going to include this truck but it will happen.

Koekepan, you're a good writer. You do a good job finding the shades of grey in a situation and confronting the players with them. It's great sandbox material for those creating worlds instead of just scenarios. This stuff is ace.

Thank you, sir. I don't get paid to write this stuff, but I appreciate it when people enjoy it.

My number one guideline, for those who care, is consistency. Always try to keep things making sense. Otherwise you breed resentment among players.

And I forgot to upload the last part of my after-action report. My apologies in advance!

The setup: The Morningblossom farm is under siege by mad animals and the toxic tribals who control them. It's Cybercowboys vs. toxic Indians time! A preliminary talk has the kids, Morningblossom's wife and one of the ork hands leave for the nearest city. The rest of the farm crowd decide to dig in and let'em come.

Front 1 - Front Porch, Stables, Fenceline - is defended by Tara the Rigger, Mr. Green the Hacker, Maxine, and Morningblossom. Front 2 - Back yard and Chicago Grey crops - is manned by Vicky the Adept, Steve the Sam as well as one of Morningblossom's Ork hands. Oz the mage is still recovering, as the player couldn't make it.

The proceedings: The first wave is Lesser Thunderbirds and E-Martens. While eye in the sky (an armed aerial drone), Vicky and Steve down most Thunderbirds, two get through and fry eye in the sky. The martens wreak havoc amond the Rigger's, Hacker's and Maxine's drones, knocking Maxine out with biofeedback and destroying half of the drone fleet. Copious use of stun grenades and Morningblossom's excellent stun ball in the end hold front 1 through wave 1.
Front 2 sees Vicky dodging thunderbolts and, with Steve's help, kill the birds. Below (Vicky takes the roof for better view), Steve is stunned by MArtens, who also mob up on the poor ork. Vicky jumps down and slice-a-dices little furry animals, though the ork nis severely mauled, lacks most of his fingers, face, and other bits, and needs a trauma patch. Front 2 holds ... with heavy losses. Morningblossom is called to help the ork.
The second wave is Antlers tribals, each aided by a force 5 Abomination and a shaman.
Front 1 deals surprisingly well with them - Tara the Rigger rolls lucky and one-shots the shaman on her front with her Mannlicher rifle, and the rest is more or less a standard goon-slaughter. The Abomination eats a lot of lead, but there is little it can do against the remaining two drones' combined automatic fire, even without more than a guardian spirit Morningblossom left behind.
Front 2 is much more interesting. Tribals roll lucky and nearly down Steve. The Abomination rushes Vicky, who slays it but is badly bruised herself. Then the tribals advance while the shaman calls up a new abomination. This is where weird shit happens, because the shaman critglitches his summon roll, AND the spirit critglitches it's resistance roll.
I decided to ask Vicky's player to get the Dark Heresy core rules and roll for Perils of the Warp and Minor Mutation. I expected some deformity on the Shaman and the trees weeping blood for 1d6 turns. What I didn't expect was "posession on everyone for 2d6+10 meters radius" and a reroll on Greater Mutation that turns the shaman into a worm. Now the tribals are possessed by toxic possession spirits, and the shaman is a worm-thing possessed by a force 5 abomination.
Things get a little tense now. Steve and Vicky combine fire on one possessed tribal, while Morningblossom heals the ork. The tribal is .... unimpressed. They Edge. One down. Vicky then decides tot ry and kill the shaman first, in the hope the other spirits will be weakened or something. Steve edges ... and rolls a damn great roll. Shaman is not only wounded, Shaman is actually hurt. Vicky edges and rolls great as well, then charges the wormthing that once was a shaman.
She rolls badly, and is nearly killed.
Steve again fires on the worm, which failed it's summoning test again, and decides to go for Vicky, who neatly dodges an acid jet. Then the runners retaliate, and ... it's worm smash. I decided the other possession nspirits take the cue and disappear, and the tribals break down in misery. Vicky and Steve do not suffer the unclean to live, though.

And that's how the Morningblossom Farm and Maxine the factory rigger were saved by a band of runners. Celebrations were held (briefly), and pay was given - partly in cash by Maxine, partly in weed by Morningblossom. The ork died in Hospital, and soon after the second wave, Ares' mercenaries zoomed overhead in their T-birds and bombed the living daylights out of the Antlers and their blighted home. Much needs to be rebuilt, but the runners made some cash, some friends, and got some quality weed (they also did a good thing). And then they drove their winebagoo and SUV into the sunset to this tune.

Additional Background and Changes: Sometimes, I like to use Dark Heresy tables, particularily when mages critglitch. It never fails to be very dramatic.

Awesome. That sounds like a good ol' time.

So, the key question: Are the runners terrified of anything which is green now, or are they keen on more of the same?

A great time was had by all involved, including me, the GM, who always wanted to do something somewhat like an old Western.

Terrified of the countryside, keen on more Grey. XD Well, some. Steve's player might retire him and switch to a new PC, and have Steve the Sam become Steve the weed farmer. Vicky is anti-drug except for alcohol, but also hates the countryside now, pragmatic as she is. Oz' player took the totaly unexpected betrayal of Green (who by now is dead) hard and might drop. Green (who was killed ingame when he ganged up with some smugglers - the player rteally got into the Judas thing!) built a new PC who is romantically involved with Steve now. Tara kinda could care less about Green or Weed. She's mercenary like that.

If they're having a hard time with the countryside, now is the time for them to run into that locust swarm across the Dakotas.

Present it right, and you might get to see them cry.

"The engine roars as you gradually make your way up the rising country of the plains, reaching higher and higher altitudes as you head for the rockies.

"But wait, what is that on the horizon? It looks like a cloud. A dust cloud. Is it a dust storm, or is it smoke? It's the wrong shade for smoke, it looks more like dust. Is this a return of the great dust bowl of a century and a half ago?

"There's a tiny click and beep from the binoculars as they zoom in on the nearest edge of the cloud. The image resolves, and you can see the tiny motes swirl like dust, swirl through the air, jumping and coming down on anything green, where they consume it like the locusts they are. What you see before you is a locust swarm the size of a city.

"It's not the first time locusts have swarmed on the high plains, and certainly won't be the last, but more details come into focus, like the half-man with four legs and jointed arms chewing on a tree as if it were a cob of corn. And locusts the size of ponies leaping and flying into the still air, powerful spiked hindlegs trailing behind them.

"They are headed your way."

Just got my players out of town with the tailchaser plothook... oh how scared they are of the contents of the box... Hee hee hee... Thank you for your fantastic ideas! I'm gonna run em all - but adapt them cos they are in the NAN

A good approach to GMing:

treat it like being a conjurer. Distract them with something shiny while you move things around.

The setup

You are going to shoot a Sheriff and a couple of deputies, maybe break a couple inmates outta jail.

The problem

Sheriff James Arkansaw is self proclaimed "toughest Sheriff in the UCAS". The Lone Star Sheriff police the local Arizona area with an rusty iron fist and have put Metahumans in his excuses for "Prisons" at the outskirts of the PCC Arizonian desert. With living conditions that makes a Squatter in the Barrens look a cushy lifestyle. He was highly criticized by many Metasapient rights groups and the odd corp who thinks the slotfaces prison condition is an eyesore. However you cant just directly oppose him. Aside from dealing with Lone Star, the last thing you want is to be flagged as a left wing dandelion eater who wants the criminals and Anarchists to run free. That said recently some groups decided that PCC needs a property value change and Arpaio has to go. That said there is many different ways to skin this sob and you different buyers who have a different reason for wanting his oily hide.

The Groups

The group you are up against is Mr. Arkansaw and the Local Lone Star on his payroll. He is a xenophobic, humanist Lone Star Sheriff who makes prisoners wear elven thongs, listen to Sinatra and other cruel forms of punishment we wont mention here. Humanis Runners will have no luck getting him to hire you since you are probably a filthy criminal or out to take his job in a virtual slavery system. Dont mistake his racism for lack of opportunistic pursuits. His cyberzombie troll prisoners act as Prison muscle with confiscated cyberware forced into them with obedience chips to add to the milspec arsenal. He has a lot of "donations" from the tough on crime old money Anglos who loves his tough on crime and immigration policy. Especially since you are sharing the country next door to Aztlan which is a worrysome problem.

The PCC wants this to be to be a clean sweep and make it simple: Kill the Sheriff and get out. The guy running this operation is Jackie Taylor, former KE Company Man who wants KE to take over Lone Star's assets. He is a clean by the book by Company Man standards and upholds Ares and KE's values that it grates on the nerves on Arizonan officials, in the past he has supported lawyers who was running against Arkansaw in Arizona's law enforcement contracts but he is also a bit too friendly with the metasapients which has him painted as ineligible for becoming the one to run the law in Arizona.

The Hatchethead clan is an NAN faction who wants you to free the prisoners and leave Arkansaw alive so he can feel the retributipn of Lone Star. The leader of this group is a native man named Iron Chainbreaker, a Negro-NAN who had his share of being in chains and barely escaped from Arkansaw's prison camp after being arrested for a false charge. Being broken once and put back together both physically and mentally, he feels that Arkansaw is merely the head of the snake. If he is discredited peacefully, the prisons will have their unbreakable reputation broken and he can get his own representatives (courtesy of Native Nation's gang's personal lawyers) to take over the prisons to use as recruiting grounds, releasing NAN friendly assets on good behavior while turning it to a literal death camp for any dandelion eater. That said the prisoners are not leaving quietly, they want Arkansaw dead if they want to escape.

The Malpais on the other hand is an anarchist gang. Bent on bringing down the man.this group wants you to lay waste to Arpaiao and the head of the snake. They want as much collateral as possible and you will deliver. They dont know they are being pulled by Lone Star outside of Arizona as well as other Security interests who want to cash in on an actual crime wave. Lone Star doesn't like Arpaio because he is leaving them with a drek reputation in PCC and the PCC may send retaliatory raids by sending their own bad dudes to cause trouble in Lone Star turf in the South where you got trigger happy conservatives that have wage slaves packing tasers to shock a metahuman bum as a past time (Remember, tasers are technically legal to own in the sixth world, even corps know we have violent impulses and better to act it on the Sinless) who will shoot any free thinker on sight.

The Preposition

"The job is simple. I want you to remove Sheriff Arksansaw from power. You may have seen his mustache twirling antics on the Matrix or the news, but this time you will be in the belly of beast. I want you to rid of bastard as per my client's requests and you will get paid. Also anyone who are concerned this will mark you as cop killers don't worry I know a good cleaner. But only if you do it right as my client wants it. I will tell you the details here..."

The Facts

A Jailbreak job, pure and simple, ok may not so simple and dealing with the aftermath of slaughtering a pig is never entertaining unless your name is John Kastle.

Finding the Sheriff is easy, getting there is hard since you will be crossing a sun baked desert at least running at 100 degrees at best as well as dodging his milspec patrols as well as elementals and paracritters wandeirng the desert wasteland.

The prison camp itself is one part fortress, one part refugee camp. plenty of gun towers with the guards packing sniper rifles with frangible and explosion munitions, the entire tent prison is within T-Bird gun range so there is literally next to no cover. You will have to bring your own rigger to even think of surviving the attack. The Adminstration building is built like a fort and supplied like one and Arkansaw has a good deal of security inside who knows the complex like the back of the palm of their hands.

Complications

The misery in the prison is ripe for a ritual. Expect a death elemental spirit swarm to make your life miserable. There is a lot of unreported prison deaths in the camps and all it takes is one imprisoned Shaman, gone clearly insane from the conditions to unleash his rage on the system

Turns out there are other groups waiting to spring their own groups out of jail. They will offer a choice for you, help them out or they will tell their friends that you didn't.

You may run into an incarcerated "friend" of yours and he has been cyberzombified...

Oh shit a fleet of gunships have arrived. Hope you packed heavy...

A coyote may hire you to get prisoners to him, and these prisoners are chipped with state of the arm stuff. No RFID remover you have can hide their stench.

Aftermath

So you killed a cop. A high profile cop. Hope you can handle the Lone Star.

The other groups out there will remember this and they are none too happy.

So where will these prisoners go now that Arpaio is dead? If you freed them, expect PCC to face a crime wave in the years to come.

Depending on the new management, you can either make powerful friends in high places or can forget about coming to PCC ever again.

You are unofficial a hero now, come on, think of the Trids and games that will be made in your exploits. A prison break of this caliber will be something Horizon will use to cater to the free thinkers! Think about it!

That one will definitely work well for people who have a taste for allegory in their roleplay (although beyond a certain point it goes beyond allegory to explicit political commentary).

For a more sophisticated group, the hints dropped by name (and other factors) tends to drop the surprise factor, so that they then know for sure what's coming. In my experience, that's not as good a roleplaying outcome.

Perhaps you could rub some of the serial numbers off that idea, and add a few curveballs? Or even address the question of government heavy-handedness in a more oblique way?

Yeah, I just wanted to do this since the whole talk about Joe Arpaio's "Toughest Sheriff" screams "kick me" with a sign on their back. The fact I was able to do all of this on a smartphone was an achievement.

Background You like a keg of my finest beer, it's genuine stuff, not that stuff made from fungi or soy, actual wheat beer, goes great with anything. Even the city slicker soy food! It's like liquid bread! Well just don't make it your sole meal source but I am willing to sell you a couple of kegs of the good stuff.

The Parties: Brian Ainoat is a stout dwarf from the outskirts Milwaukee. Against all odds he had managed to have a farm dedicated to one thing before big Agriculture ruined the palates of every man, woman and child of the midwest and Big Ten (namely Ares) decided to put it out of it's misery. Beer was sadly one of the many victims of Big Agriculture's influence, Anheuser Busch had not only forced a glut of food but it had created a glut of unappetizing cuisine and beer associated with small time crooks, but even then even a respectable shadowrunner would rather swig down a bottle of synthenol than a can of bud light or Milwaukee. Ainoat Ale is a high alcohol all wheat beer with a dirty little secret: It can give you dwarf like strength when drunk provided you have enough cans, then again you would probably die of alcohol poisoning. The guy wants to remain independent and he has a good deal of connections to smugglers to ensure independence since he keeps them well stocked with beer that they sell everywhere for jacked up prices. You know the whole thing it is with wars and how you can make a steal for chems.

Ares obviously wants the beer, namely KE Head Galahad McLeod, he was looking for a way to boost KE morale in Chicago from the bug city fighting by giving them something that will make them fight harder. During a milk run for beer he had stumbled upon Ainoat Ale. The guy wants to secure supply rights with Ainoat and he now has to play dirty to get more of the good stuff. Galahad had suffered quite a bit from the Bug War in Chicago and seriously wants some of that stuff to erase the memory of a squad being eaten alive and turned into bug spirits.

Saeder Krupp is a surprising competitor in this beer war as it had acquired Anheuser Busch and turned it's alcohol companies to producing beer worldwide, unfortunately the beer is anything but natural and subtly filled with addictives to encourage deviant behavior to make the criminal underworld weak to the Golden Snout's suggestions. Hans Lubeck has heard about this potent brew and decided to set up shop with a chain of breweries in the local area of Ainoat, who wanted to build it in the first place. His goal is to either destroy Ainoat completely or make him produce their brands of beer.

The Problem: Brian has been facing problems with KE, they have been blockading his main lines of shipping and denying access to sell his wares without paying duties. Now just because the prohibition is over doesn't mean there isn't any alcohol smuggling to do, you got the middle east who prohibits liquor to the hum of religion and the pussies who thinks 100% proof is too unsafe to sell, and then there is classic tax evasion which makes up of the major reason why the day the Sixth World legalize drugs the cartels with novacoke will buy out DocWagon and run on preferred service. Brian needs to to either send a convoy of beer to a smuggling post or actually do it yourself in a classic moonshine run. KE on the other hand wants the beer to their places but recently someone has been hiring raiders on the road to hit the beer convoy or KE patrols. Either way, it's a fight.

The Proposition: I need someone with a nice big truck, or ride one of my trucks to this place carrying the beer. And watch out for the raiders, they would sure love my beer but I sure as hell ain't sharing with these slotfaces"

The Facts: You are on a smuggling run and it's that simple, that said KE patrols are going to be on the lookout for any beer truck and unless you want to sell yourself out to the KE they will most likely shoot you. Unfortunately for them the SK had hired raiders and criminal scum to keep the KE distracted so they can get the main prize, the beer. They hope to hit enough convoys to force Ainoat outta business and it may be in the best interest of the Runners to hit their bandit hideout. But only the KE knows where it is but can't make a move since it may lead to a war between SK and them, and the last thing they need is the dragon in their backyard.

Compications

Is this the Walking Dead? Yeah, ghouls wander the roads as KE does and they are hungry for brains

Maybe Ainoat may toss in an extra job where you are going stop by, pay a visit to a local AB brewery and teach these tasteless beer duds a lesson in making beer.

Contamination, Contimination everywhere.

Maybe one of the runners couldn't resist the beer and tries a glass, then another and another...

Aftermath

So now the beer is shipped out, you want to make the rest of the trip?

Galahad has a lot of pull in KE, being discharge for alcohol addiction may cause you problems in detroit.

As always, never cut a deal with a dragon or in your case, screw with a dragon.

Was the beer contaiminated without anyone noticing? Oh Drek that can't be good news.

Background:

Being a bodyguard is rough enough when you're in the 'plex and you have all the trappings of technology to help you keep an eagle eye on your surroundings, the people, and ultimately to help you with any drekheads burned enough to think they can make it through your defences.

Out in the countryside, it's a tiny bit harder.

The Parties:

Confederation of Artistes Simutainment is a TriD and Simsense studio. High tech, high prices, high standards. And when they hire talent, they hire someone to protect that talent.

Victor Steel is talent. Big talent, with a square jaw, a bit of scruff, some tan, and just a hint of wrinkles. Cute enough to cuddle, hot enough to want. He's simsense sales numbers on two feet.

Cathy Grier is talent. Big talent. She's an actress with a degree and skills to show for it, but it doesn't hurt that her genetics and her surgeon collaborated on a feast for the eyes and the sims.

The Extras ... dozens of people, most of whom are here to prove that they should be in Victor and Cathy's shoes, and are ready to steal, kill, frag and slag and maybe even do a little acting to prove it. And posing. And preening. So very much posing and preening.

The Crew, led by Armand le Tour, director extraordinaire. The toast of the red carpet, the A list celeb that everyone wants to be seen with. He has a travel trailer twice the size of anyone else's, to make room for his ego.

The Fans. No, they weren't invited. It's cute how you thought that made a difference.

Franklin Mickelson is the fixer. He is a great fixer. Money flows through his jeweled fingers like water, and impressing him is a good way for a runner to make some great money. Failing to impress him is a good way never to work again. Ever.

The Problem:

It's not that hard to do a movie, even with full three dimensionality, and composite everything into place. Doing it convincingly with sim is still way too expensive and very difficult. It's actually easier to shoot some things on location, and flesh is cheaper than that much technology. If this were animated it would be easy but the fact is that it isn't, and in full sim the audience is very good at picking out inconsistencies.

This is why the whole cast and crew are headed for the high country near Denver in Summer.

The Proposition:

"I have contact with some very influential backers behind an entertainment project. Security is a priority - of course, it always is - but it's also a problem. The shoot must go off without a hitch. It must be a beautiful, a superlative, a miraculous artistic work, and a copy of all the shot material must make it back to me ASAP. The backers are concerned that certain of the people intend to play a double game with the insurance, then take the money and run. So. You get to hold Victor's coat when he needs it, and give it to him when he needs it. You get to discreetly bring groupies when he's in the mood, and discreetly keep them away when he's not. You get to be part of the magic - but you also get to protect the magic, and to make sure it comes home. Am I clear? I assume that two hundred thousand nuyen will be satisfactory recompense. Do the job right, and I have another couple for you."

The Facts:

This show is doomed. It might as well have been called the Graf Zeppelin. It's going down in flames.

Cathy hates Victor's guts, and Victor isn't too wild about hers. They're supposed to have sex in the desert, on the record. Unless the writers rewrite it as an angry grudgefuck, it will suck harder than she knows how to, and that's just a fact of movie magic.

Armand is good enough at his job, all hyperbole aside, that he will know it is not going well. This will make him worse to deal with than a cuddly porcupine. His bad attitude will amplify everyone else's and be highly disruptive to security arrangements.

The writers are not being shipped out to the back of beyond - there's no point in this world of remote communications. Of course, that means the team decker will be responsible for keeping those communications safe and secure while the crew is trying to score some hot groupie ass in the air conditioned comms trailer. Oh, was that door supposed to be locked?

Franklin is screwing half the backers at the behest of the other half. This simsense is getting leaked so that it can be edited for BTL use on the side. The players can blow that scheme open and never work the town again, or play ball and have the other half of the producers outraged. Oh well.

Some Complications:

A groupie collective wants to kidnap Victor for some extracurricular activities. Victor wants to be kidnapped, and wants extracurricular activities. If this means that Cathy needs to get STD treatments, well, Victor's OK with that.

A Denver-based crew union wants to picket - and maybe get more disruptive.

Some of the extras are angry enough to put special sauce on Armand's steak. Special peyote and/or mushroom sauce.

Extras decide to preen where the rattlers like to preen. Did you bring the snakebite kit?

An extra goes off somewhere stupid to get into character, and climbs a fence into a paddock containing an angry ram. Sheep:1, Extra: 0.

Aftermath Ideas:

A lot depends on how greatly Franklin is pleased, or displeased, but the other backers aren't fools, and planted some countervailing forces in the crew.

The runners get caught on camera, so everybody knows exactly who was there.

Armand insists on casting some of the team. The lights! The excitement! The stars on Hollywood Boulevard!

I love the complications. There's a lot of RP juice to be squeezed there, and a lot of ways for the PCs to shine without resorting to guns and fireballs. The prospect of getting cast for a walk-on role would be a fun temptation to see the runners contemplate.

Also, "extracurricular activities"... tee hee.

I haven't run any of these as written (although that could yet come), but I did want to thank you for the idea of the toxic shamans on the over fertilized and pesticided farm. There was a scenario I found somewhere else (I wish I could remember where), where the runners have to blow up a local Doc Wagon factory. Running that I didn't let the runners know who owned the factory, when they saw the marking on the kits they were all " Doc Wagon guarantees their high threat response teams can be anywhere in the metroplex in ten minutes, with average response time less than that-- we can't fight one of those!" I played this up, counting the minutes as they finished up the mission and extracted themselves....into the neighbouring fields of soy plants (an NPC pointed out that thermographic vision has a chance of being foiled by vegetation).

They were worried about the GMC Banshee and combat drones that arrived, then worried that the pest control drones would give away their position, until the first toxic spirit zoomed in and attacked. Dealing with those while not attracting attention from the Doc Wagon forces cranked up the stress level nicely. They did eventually find the toxic shaman / low level rigger, operating out of an old root cellar, where they survived long enough for the crazed toxic shaman to discover he was not very resistant to SMG fire.

It was missing out on the moral quandary and confusion factor that you write into your scenarios, but it was satisfyingly confusing and scary

I think I just woke my son by laughing too loudly

Hey, if you want an environment of fear, uncertainty and doubt, I can try to oblige.

Wrap-up: I skipped the swarm because after they left the farm, the group Judas was activated. A fellow PC betraying the PCs never ceases to surprise.

I also used a basic scenario, albeit de-grimmed, in another game. Generally, I find Koekepans adventures very useful to liven up things or add flavor, Karma and physically and emotionally brutalizing experiences to 'road trip' type adventures, which are actually more like mini campaigbns and something I really like to run.

I am quite surprised i was the first one make an alcohol related run. The midwest was probably the classic case of corps destroying a way of life or in their way. Taste. I mean during around the time of the Crimean Wars a lot of Germans moved to the Midwest to start anew and brought a lot of fine farmer foods. Then we saw General Mills and Anheuser Busch come in with their monofarms and soon the palate was replaced with cheap hot dogs, deep fried crap and a cuisine scene that makes the Scots munchie box look like something Hestavy would eat as a way to impress guests

You don't think that the one set in old Wes' Virginny was alcohol based? That still is mighty important to some folks.

For fuel alcohol, of course.

Background:

Farming on the Canadian Shield is hard. It can be done, by people who can stand the punishing swing from sweltering Summer, to withering Winter. When the boreal winds sweep down their icy bite is deep. Still, some few lunatics still do it. If they're that crazy, who'll stop them? But now and again even maniacs with eyes which can scan a horizon miles away and tans burned into their skins from eighteen hour days need a little help.

Guillaume has a farm to the west of Hudson Bay, in what used to be Manitoba, where he makes a modest living. He has some grains, some vegetables in earth-bermed greenhouses, and some regular cattle, sheep and pigs. But the real money is in the qiviut he combs from his musk oxen. When the weather turns ugly, the cattle and sheep live in the barns and he feeds them hay and grains stored from the hot months, but the musk oxen wander his land in the blizzards and ice storms.

The Parties:

Guillaume du Toit is french canadian, but his English is fine. He never learned the speech of the cities, because he doesn't need it. He's a throwback, in his way, but a successful one. He could build a cabin with an axe, dig a root cellar with a mattock, and farm with a shovel and fork if he had to. He's a massive, barrel-chested human. With cosmetics, he could pass for an ork, and a husky one at that.

Barbara du Toit is also french canadian, and is as human as her husband, Guillaume. She helps him farm, when she isn't looking after the household. She raises their four young children with tenderness, grace, and a swift wooden spoon the size of a rifle stock. She's every bit as good a shot as Guillaume, and the rabbits which dare to sully her gardens go into her pot.

Autumn. The snow is already here, but more is blowing in with the howling voices of an Awakened world.

The Problem:

Guillaume and Barbara care for and protect their whole farm, but sometimes Mother Nature brings more than they can easily deal with. Even Guillaume's old .303 can't take down a wolf when the blizzard blinds him.

And the wolves have come for the musk oxen.

The Proposition:

"The herd is in danger. I hear them, I hear the wolves calling at night. I found the remains of a calf they ate, frozen in the snow. How long ago? I do not know, but less than a week. I have to take care of the animals here, I cannot be walking around in the snow hunting wolves. I am a busy man, but you, you could go. What else do you have to do? Do this for me: bring me the hides of the wolves. Kill them all, and save my beasts, and you shall sleep warm in my barn and eat well from Barbara's kitchen this Winter. If not? Begone. Go back to Toronto. Wrap your feet well when you walk there, because frostbite will take your toes."

The Facts:

The team isn't there because they want to be. It's because they want to be elsewhere even less. They need shelter, they need food, they need to survive while hanging out long enough for their trails to get cold. Guillaume is offering them a safehouse which is so far out of the way, nobody is likely to even think of looking. And all they have to do is one little favour.

These aren't cute doggies. These are apex predators - rapacious timber wolves. They are smart. They mass about 50 to 70kg of hard muscle and fangs. If musk ox isn't the meal of the day, then maybe shadowrunner is. They run in a blizzard with snow a fathom deep, and lope along all day at a fast trot. They kill as a team, and they will gash and disembowel their prey until they falter and fall and are eaten, even still alive and twitching.

It's only early October, but the season closed in rapidly and the last chance to decide one way or another is rapidly vanishing. Clouds, heavy and green with fresh snow can be seen rolling overhead in the breaks in the weather.

Some Complications:

Polar bears. Wendigo.

Awakened wolves. Shapeshifters. Regular wolves are bad enough, but what about these?

Wolf shamans might have a real problem with this.

Sudden onset weather changes. It can turn in astonishingly short swings. A balmy 5C can turn into -20C in an hour. As the season gets later, -20C can feel balmy.

Snow blindness. Forgot your eye protection? You can be effectively blinded. It's a real thing.

Disorientation. And don't think satellite connections are reliable in heavy weather either.

The chill can be brutal. Windchill can drop the apparent temperature below -50C. Cyberware starts to misbehave and freeze up. And the wolves are on the move.

Aftermath Ideas:

Let's say the runners survive. Or some of them, anyway. Let's say they succeed, and get paid in a sack of qiviut. Do they have any idea what they have, and how valuable it is? Turning a resource into cash is always tough.

It happens that I grew up in Eastern Manitoba (not that far north, but same basic geography), and my grandparents had a farm in the Canadian Shield (cows will happily browse shrubs, and it is amazing where you can grow potatoes....). For this alone I'll have to run this scenario

One additional thought, once you get off the farm, the land is probably granite ridges separated by muskeg (swamp). In this weather the surface may be starting to freeze, but anyone heavy (orcs, trolls, metal bone lacing maybe) would likely break through. Oh, also, if you see the northern lights, good chance that your satellite link net connection is going to be messed up.

Glad I could be of service to the canadian contingent!

I'm not a taiga or tundra farmer, but I've spent many hours stalking through snow with a rifle in my hands, finding the thing which is eating my animals. Don't underestimate how much the cold can hurt, or how quickly hypothermia can set in, or how much foggy scopes and frozen actions can screw up shooting.