wait wait wait.....I thought Canada was all trees and snow!!!!!



( )

We also make Napalm out of the Great Canadian Invention... INSTANT POTATOES!

Wahahahahahaaahaaaaaah!

Yeah I must admit CanRay that is pretty awesome. So season 5 missions

Holy smoke, this thread is awesome! Nice work. Just started a Texas-based campaign for some new players here in Houston, so I'm totally stealing some of this.

I've been working up a water-rights run, where the runners are tasked with "naturally" diverting the course of a waterway. Moving the Trinity River from the San Jacinto Basin to the Brazos River Basin, for example, would affect thousands of acres downstream, radically altering property values and production rates. At certain points, a few feet of elevation are all that separates boom from bust, for many. Rivers alter their course over time naturally, so certainly somebody out there is going to try to use this to their advantage. A few properly placed underwater boulders, a berm, and maybe a tree or two, and the river begins to cut itself a new course.

I'm not sure at this point if I want to have the PCs doing the alteration or attempting to repair it...don't have a good feel for how nefarious these guys are quite yet. Either way, I am sure the operation will take place at a remote location, there will be a free spirit (actually, probably three) of the Trinity River involved, and at least a couple of locals will have a direct and immediate interest in the goings-on.

Talk to Bull and order many, many copies of "Burn" in order to get me writing Missions again.

I gotta say I love this thread btw. I have taken elements from several of them and kinda mashed them together.

Oh one other thing to note, I made my group leave Seattle in a hurry, and by Car, and they had to head to Arkansas.....that is ALOT of border crossings Muahahaha

Thank you for all the good folks who spoke so kindly, and best of luck to those who are using these plans. Please do let us know how it works out.

Here's another to keep you busy:

Background:

You know what they say: when seconds count, Lone Star is only minutes away. Unless you're at the end of a dirt road up a canyon in the badlands, in which case nobody's coming.

Unless, of course, there are some hired guns around. Then maybe you can hire them. And maybe they'll work honest.

The parties:

The Anstruther household consists of Sarah, Michelle, and Dahlia. Dahlia is Sarah's daughter by genetic recombination with Michelle, who is Sarah's lesbian wife. You have a problem with that, stranger? All three are human, palefaces but as much a part of the scenery as the rocks.

The survivalists are a gang of stragglers from what was a millenial cult. Mostly second generation now, but Guru Swami Rajakrishnan (birth name: Harold Gutenmeyer) still runs them with an iron fist of love and inner light. Michelle used to be a member, but she's apostate now, and has no time for them. They kicked her out, nominally to fly with the eagles in the light of her own inner peace; practically to die of thirst and exposure in the badlands. She ran into Sarah (a rigger, at the time) who saved her and retired to the badlands to live with Michelle, and now they farm some incredibly hardy livestock, arguably even better than the survivalists.

The vultures are a go-gang from Denver who like nothing better than to go out into the back of beyond, live out the kind of hideous depravity even snuff BTL makers shudder to contemplate, and then return safe in the knowledge that nobody knows, nobody cares, and whatever they're selling for salvage or scrap won't be missed by anyone still living.

The problem:

It's hard times in the badlands. The Anstruther house is caught between the rock of the madness of the survivalists, who claim on the one hand that the chickens and goats and guineafowl and other creatures which the Anstruthers are farming, belong to them. Because ... something about Michelle being a member. Does it really matter why? It's theirs, they want it, and nobody's stopping them. Even though the survivalists nominally try to live as close to vegan as people who live off the land can.... and on the other hand there's the hard place of the vultures showing up. And what timing!

The proposition:

This depends. The Anstruthers don't have much to offer, but it might fetch a good price if you know someone in Chicago, Denver, Seattle or further afield with a taste for high quality hand-knotted rugs, or artisanal goat's-milk cheese, or whatever. Opportunities for the Face to negotiate.

The survivalists have a lot to offer - they have decades of stock in all sorts of crafts. Still needs a market, though.

The vultures offer membership (including a front row seat in the depravities they want to visit on everyone) or death.

The facts:

The runners aren't here because they want to be. They're only here because something went wrong. Badly wrong. There are minerals in the badlands - perhaps they're here for a mining concern. Maybe they were hunting Wendigo. Maybe they're just stupid, pissed off the wrong oyabun, and got dropped here to teach them humility. Any way, they're here and they probably want to live through this. Maybe they even want to be able to look themselves in the mirror in the morning.

Some complications:

Wendigo. Why not? Whether the runners were planning on it or not.

A dragon's lair. Perhaps even a dragon's nest. Good times.

Maybe some angry people (alive or dead) are following the vultures, preparing a psychic storm of epic proportions.

Maybe one of their number gets surrounded and caught by the vultures, and forced to take part in the gang rapemurder of the Anstruther household. All depends on how dark you get in your runs, and if they're only smoky-grey, why aren't you playing Candyland? If you're feeling too softhearted, have the other runners defending the Anstruthers and have the captive make a choice. Look in their eyes while they choose, and enjoy.

Aftermath ideas:

A really annoyed millenial cult run by a lunatic is in your background. Forever.

A really annoyed gang with a significantly diminished respect for the dignity of humanity is in your background. Forever, until death do you part at any rate.

That wendigo - did you catch it? Did you kill it? Are you sure? How sure are you? Oh, you're very sure. That's good. That's real good.

Did you deal with the dragon? Doesn't everyone tell you not to cut a deal with a dragon? Why did you do it? What were you thinking? Oh well, too late to cry over spilt milk.

Can you remember the way they screamed? The last, terrified begging for mercy? The promises they made, then the despair in their voices when they stopped making promises because they knew it didn't matter? More importantly, can you ever forget it?

[deleted duplicate]

Yay, Redneck Runs are back! Koekepan, you are talented. Here are my favorites:

Thank you for the compliments. Let me know how they play out in real life? Big success, or C.L.U.E. files entry?

More to come soon.

Background:

Talking to the trees is a common activity for romantic, love-lorn folks.When the trees talk back, it's usually spirits, or drugs, or some kind of mischief. Not this time.

Timothy Norman is a logger - mostly known as Chainsaw Tim - but he's not just a simple lumberjack. He's a tree farmer. He picks out the biggest trees in a lot, each year, and just takes a few, the biggest and best, and clears some saplings. That's the way to log, when you're watched by shamans who care about sustainability. He has even learned to pray to the great tree spirits.

The parties:

Chainsaw Tim has an arrangement with the Salish. They get 75% of his profits, he keeps their shamans happy, but he cuts and sells wood with exclusive rights over 4 square miles of forest. It helps that he is from a tribal family, and is in pretty good with the elders, but the old blood is so diluted that one couldn't tell by looking at him.

The problem:

The real problem isn't the trees, nor spirits as such. It's an awakened fungal disease which is attacking the trees. Awakened to the point that it can whisper in the voice of the wind whistling through the fir needles.

The disease isn't anti-tree. It's anti-woodcutter. It is bad for trees, of course, but to it the woodcutter is competition. Worse yet, it can infect metahumans, although this is not yet apparent. It has two manifestations in people: pleural (attacking the lungs, resulting in coughing and the disease whispering in one's sleep, and one's raspy breathing) and dermal (the skin, where it looks like rather funky self-growing nanotats).

The proposition:

"There's a voice in the trees. I keep hearing it, mocking me. Laughing at me. It makes it difficult, even disorienting. The medicine men, they say it is a bad spirit of some sort in the trees, but not one they met before. Smiling Bobcat, he said I need to find an expert. Are you expert enough to exorcise evil?"

The facts:

The disease isn't particularly infectious in metahumans, so it can look entirely innocent for a while. It is however quite infectious in evergreens, and is capable of rotting a hundred foot fir from the inside out. It has a long latent period (over a year) so its actual infected distribution is far wider than it looks, and incautious screwing with it will spread it further. Perhaps even into the city. This is a great setup for having disease control authorities hunting for the source of infection (i.e. the runners) with everything at their disposal.

If the runners have a clue, they should be able to determine that an awakened disease is the problem. However, turning a profit from this will be trickier. There are some people who will pay handsomely for the information (academics, plant pathologists, and of course DocWagon's pathology team) but closing that deal will be hard. Timmy just wants it done without burning down the whole forest, but has little to offer (although the tribal heads are concerned enough to sweeten the deal).

Some complications:

It is a disease - it is infectious. It can affect runners, and once established, it is intelligent.

Awakened fungal diseases can have interesting interactions with wards.

Real wood is expensive - very expensive. Maybe someone wants them to bring some back, on the sly.

Aftermath ideas:

What's not to love? Crazy disease? Funky markings? Voices in the night?

Indian shamans? Wood smugglers? Elven jealousies? Favours to or from DocWagon?

The runners should come back from this with more baggage than a train.

Yay! Koekepan's back with his redneck runs! Enough to make you wish your runners weren't so doggawn attached to all the mod cons in their li'l ol' slice of unban hell ...

Thank you all for kind words. Here's a run which might get some of your more city-bound teams out from the bright lights.

Background:

Boris Yakovlev is a fixer, a fixer with a problem. He has hired a team he believes to be semi competent for a delicate run, and to get this sorted out, he desperately needs someone else, someone disposable, to run a tailchaser. Of course, he won't tell them it's a tailchaser, he'll just tell them it's a frightfully important mission, and then tip off authorities. This is where the runners come in.

The parties:

Boris is a fixer with a reasonable reputation for getting things done, and a reputation for being as cold as antarctic rock. But he is known for paying on time, in full, and even paying bonuses for good work.

The Perforated Condoms are a team of ex go-gangers who turned smuggler. Their motto? Get in, drop contraband, get out. They're not particularly subtle, but they are very good at moving very, very fast, and switching vehicles at a run to confuse pursuit.

The problem:

Boris wants the run not to look like a set-up, because that will blow his reputation, so he wants some other plausible line of blame. The Perforated Condoms are perfect, because their unsubtlety will easily give rise to pointed fingers and accusations, leaving him looking clean. All he wants is a team of runners who will keep the authorities distracted for a few hours, and then be out of town for a while, leaving the heat off the team he has doing real work.

The proposition:

"Very simply, friend, I need pick-up and delivery. Very quiet, no trouble, no headlines, no news. Very discreet. You get package whole, you deliver whole. You don't open package - what's in it, you don't want to open, just trust me. Try not shake too much, definitely do not drop."

"Pick-up is Monday, 17:47 precise, corner of fifth and Virginia. Man with red helmet and motorcycle put package on corner and leave. You take package to address encrypted in ARO. Datafile has key for encryption. Deliver package whole? Nuyen, fifteen thousand. Under twenty-four hour? Twenty-five thousand. Break package? Have address of good doctor, contact me at matrix address in datafile, do not see me in person. Do not see anybody you like in person."

The facts:

Boris needs this done. The team will be able to negotiate him up on the grounds of the package's sensitivity and personal risk to as high as 45K, but he will complain and huff about the terms of the bonus for swift delivery. The address in the encrypted ARO on the box? Anywhere you find convenient. The shores of a lake somewhere in what was once northern Ontario would do just as well as a floridian swamp.

The hand off from the Perforated Condoms should be practically seamless - let the runners think it's all on the level for thirty seconds, then the motorcyclist takes off like a drag racer in a hurry, and the heat descends. Drones, air pursuit, cars trying to cut off roads, lay it on thick. Emphasise to the team that if they don't want to be trapped and bent over the hood of a Lone Star vehicle, spreading them, that they have to floor it, and floor it hard.

Also, work on their nervousness about the package. The package itself is designed as a tailchaser package's dream - inside a basic recycled fibre box, is a metal box with tamper-evident seals, marked with warnings strongly hinting at awakened biohazards. Inside, there are faint sounds (but barely audible in the back of a speeding vehicle): occasional beeps, muffled voice warnings about out-of-specification concussions, hazardous vibrations, accelerated cellular division rates, reduced human protein nutrient rates, and sounds like clinking glassware. If they handle the package particularly roughly, or turn it wrong side up, there's a quiet but clearly audible siren whoop-whooping from inside and the voice says something about bioseals being critical.

In actual fact it mostly contains (fairly) safe but extremely foul-smelling chemicals and a few bottles of regular yeast consuming a solution of sugar and agar. A few boxes contain living fly larvae eating some rotting meat. If the runners get extremely stupid, the bottles might burst, meaning that there will be sounds of glass shattering, and the metal box will ooze bubbling fluid which smells of chemical death. Lay it on thick - they should fear for their lives.

In the drop zone? Nobody is there to take the package, it's just an old dropbox into which they can place the package. If the runners get cute and want to stake it out to find out who takes the package, leave them watching it for three days, and then get the locals interested in the runners. That should screw things up nicely. If you need the runners to stay around, have it come to light that some of the shootout during the chase has necessitated repairs, or have fuel running out, or have the environment chewing up some of their transport - be creative.

Some complications:

Boris can leave them irate messages complaining about a lack of discretion.

Maybe the destination is in the Ozarks, and they are having a hard time getting a Matrix link. Hackers should feel antsy, possibly isolated.

Feel free to lay on the matrix media news snippets. Talk about international terrorists making off with Ebola-based bioweapons. Talk about an international manhunt for apocalyptic cultists. Show trid of cities from New York to Nanjing with road blocks, police in bio-isolation suits brutalising suspects. Show Barrens areas being gone through with armoured cars and drones, show joint operations between Lone Star, Knight Errant, and the military.

If they leave their vehicles anywhere, even if only overnight? Have them return to find them stripped by acquisitive rednecks.

Aftermath ideas:

By all means, in a week or two, have a country doc look at the package, analyse it, and shit herself laughing. Make them feel like real idiots. Make them angry. Make them hate Boris and anyone who looks like him.

Have the whole scare die down, once you have the team well embedded and in over their ears in the countryside, by having someone from Aztechnology promise that nothing important was taken, just a decoy stolen by incompetent thieves, and providing clear assurances that the really important stuff is much more well protected than anyone fears.

Maybe word got out in the scene, and the runners pick up a reputation as patsies. Take them down a notch or two, if they're getting too cocky.

Background:

This is a complex situation. Environmental Extractions, Inc. is a mining concern which has identified a rich seam of copper ore in what used to be the canadian high plains. Unfortunately, this leads to some differences of opinion among people. On the one hand, copper is valuable and everyone wants some. The NAN could certainly use the cash, for instance, but on the other hand not everyone wants a great big energy-hungry, land-toxifying, water-spoiling mine where they are trying to have agriculture. There's also a small detail of there being some forgotten pioneer mines from way back when in the area, and some of those are haunted.

The parties:

Two tribes of Salish-Shidhe are the primary disputants.

There are the Broken Teeth, an Ork clan which has been accepted by the NAN. They are against mining, because on the whole they have turned their back on the modern world and would be fairly happy with neolithic technology, augmented by magic.

Lasting Footprints is the head medicine man of the Broken Teeth, a very experienced and knowledgeable animist shaman. He's actually not really anti-tech, but respects the will of his people, and recognises that there is some sort of wisdom in their desires. He doesn't want to see them lose what they have.

The Round Heads are a human tribe, and much much more influential than the Broken Teeth. At best their attachment to the area is tenuous, but because of their clout on larger councils, their views get strong hearings. They want money, and they want to live well, and if they have a resource, they want to use it.

Braun & Huebsch is a mining company which is interested in working the seam. They are a subsidiary of Saeder-Krupp, which is making the pitch that because they're run by a dragon, they care about the world and spirits and all the rest of it, and so won't despoil the earth. They will put up a bond for cleaning up, for rehabilitation, and pay substantial royalties, is their argument.

The problem:

Obviously, the disagreement is a problem. The Broken Teeth are very concerned that they will be pushed aside - a particular concern in the view of Lasting Footprints, since he thinks that they may lose their young people, and the tribe as a whole may dissolve. Worst case, he will accept royalties from the mine, but many in his tribe as ready to see that as a betrayal.

The Round Heads wish the Broken Teeth would accede, or get out of the way. They see the orks as flies in otherwise very lucrative ointment, and a certain degree of racial resentment is rising. Older and wiser heads realise that conflict will not serve them well, but again some more hotheaded factions are making it difficult to reach a solution.

The proposition:

This depends on who is making the offer. The corporation wants no trouble, because trouble is bad for business and they might lose a lot of goodwill which would be hard to win back. The corporation really wants runners to stay out of it all, except as bodyguards for their workers perhaps.

The Round Heads are less inhibited - nobody is about to question their right to be there, and while it would never be openly contemplated, quite a few faction heads might approach runners, asking them to drive off the Broken Teeth and make it look like some paleface incursion, without implicating Braun & Huebsch.

The Broken Teeth aren't stupid, and want to be guarded against misbehaviour on the parts of all others - mostly the Round Heads, although they won't openly admit this (they're sensitive about creating the appearance of dissension, regardless of actual dissension).

The facts:

If the runners don't pick up for the Round Heads, the tribe will find someone else to do their dirty work. It might take a little while, but with this much money on the line, it's inevitable. If the Broken Teeth get the deal with the runners, then it's only a matter of time before serious drek hits the fan.

If the runners decide to drive the Broken Teeth off, they're up for one hell of a fight. An angry tribe with nothing left to lose and not a few magicians is a serious opponent.

If the runners decide it's better business guarding mining personnel, it will be a constant stream of low-grade sabotage and interference.

A really brilliant team might come up with the idea of brokering an agreement. This is possible, but the Broken Teeth will want compensation with other land, access to navigable rivers, and other benefits. The runners will then also make good friends with the company, and at least have mollified the Round Heads.

Some complications:

The situation is pretty complicated already, but the miners will also come across all sorts of nasties hiding in old mine shafts and adits.

Other mining companies might quietly bribe the runners to sabotage the whole deal, so that Saeder-Krupp is out in the cold, and someone else (Aztechnology, Renraku, whoever) can try to step in later.

Aftermath ideas:

This one is all about relationships. Slick runners make friends, stupid ones make enemies.

For the last one, I would probably go with the runners hired by The Broken Teeth for a Seven Samuari-type run, with the need for gureilla tactics to sabotage the mining prospecting operation, and shoring up the tribe's defences against covert or overt Roundhead intimidation/raids.

This will swiftly result in their re-aquisition of their reputation of badasses not to be crossed by way of one crucified Boris Yakolev, or at the very least, they're going to perforate the condoms with bullets, if Boris successfully manages to blame the Condoms for the massive fuck-up. Remember, he can't have it both ways; if the Streets know they were played for fools, they know it. And remember that this kind of thing can and will come back on Boris too; it makes him look like a moron for hiring a bunch of unsubtle maniacs.


[e]Wait a minute, Boris Yakolev... Isn't he the guy from the Genesis SNES game? The one that was a fixer?

Crucified? Your group plays nice.

Telephone/power poles are there for a reason!

Reputation is very fluid, so naturally it is up to the runners to re-establish their reputation. How they choose to do so is an open question. I've had some groups so passive that they would have done nothing to repair their reputation, and would have instead sulked about doing extractions of kindergartners.

Boris has his own problems. The entire point is that he's rather desperate, so the hit he might take in reputation will just be part of the price he has to pay for success where it matters - the main job the tailchaser is intended to mask.



I never played that game (never had a Genesis) so I couldn't tell you.

Will you include the part where they get picked off, one by one, by corporate goons and opposition warriors?

I prefer to let my players choose the position they take, and then make them live with their own decisions. That way they don't start out hating me, but hating each other for the way they listened to each other's bad ideas.

And now a run for the more violently inclined.

Background:

Upstate New York. A tiny town buried in the Appalachians. A lot of frustration, a lot of families who struggled here after the borders of the USA turned into the borders of the UCAS, a lot of hatred, resentment and misery. Fertile breeding grounds for the kind of upstanding people who think that Humanis had the right idea. Add a long lasting blizzard, and things get raw.

The parties:

Pappy and Gappy. Two men old enough to remember when the sinfulness of the old world brought the biblical plagues upon the world. They tell of the glories of Babylon, and the sinful pride of the men who brought down a judgement on the world. They also explain how the twisted people are possessed by demons, and how any right minded person should do away with them.

Cora Wilder. She led many of the first dwarves of the dying midwest here, and a few elves as well. So far they've largely flown under the radar of resentment, while orks and trolls took the worst heat, but times are bad and when times get bad, anyone makes a scapegoat. Especially if they look small.

Dominic Cuzco. He is an experienced, slick, capable black magician. He has three apprentices, and they are all smart enough to keep things very low key. Dominic knows perfectly well that there's nothing to gain by being overt about his capabilities, so most people in town just think of him as a nice man who made some good money in the city before early retirement.

The problem:

The snow has kept things local, with every road out closed. This includes keeping the players in, but also meant that aggressive bigots have had plenty of time to hatch plans, and the local Humanis chapter has hatched a particular plan to try to wipe out the dwarves, whom they see as an offence against all that is right and good, as well as sitting ducks.

The proposition:

<<We're in our compound. We're dug in, but they used explosives to blow open our doors. We have injured, and not a lot of ammunition or medical supplies. If you can come from the Sou>> ... LINK LOST

"Hello there, friend. You headed for the fight? Yes, I know. It's a bad business, all those poor people trapped by Humanis. I wish justice could be done, but I'm no fighting man. Godspeed. I don't know if it will help, but here, take this medical kit. It might save a life or two. Oh, and by the way, if you happen to see something I lent them, I'd be obliged to have it back before those worthless goons take it, or worse, wreck it."

The facts:

The dwarves live in low houses connected with tunnels. It makes a fine clan compound, but wasn't really designed with defence in mind. In fact, it was less designed as such than organically expanded as time passed.

The elves ran into the blizzard, and are now prowling around, hoping to achieve something, but are too tall for the tunnels and too ill armed to take on Humanis. If the players find them, they will be able to get some tactical information from them as well as layout for the compound.

Dominic is genuinely being helpful - he has absolutely no time for Humanis, and would cheerfully kill every one of them if he thought for an instant he could get away with it. The catch is that what he wants back was taken from him by the dwarves who suspect him of being of less than entirely pure intent, and don't think that he should get to keep a fetish apparently made of two ears sewn together to resemble a clam.

Some complications:

If the runners aren't all human, Humanis will know this, and will be delighted to add them to the hit list - more so because they will be in the open.

The locals are hunters (many of them, anyhow) and have substantially beefed up goggles and excellent hunting rifles. It's like wandering around surrounded by snipers who are looking for targets.

The locals have nothing fully automatic or otherwise military, but have mining explosives and know how to use them.

Aftermath ideas:

Humanis as an enemy - not in the generic sense of not liking your face, but in the sense of personally wanting to take you out of commission - good times.

Dominic always has more work to be done, and a lot of it might end very badly.

Ok. I don't get it: what is Boris about to do with or against The Perforated Condoms

That's pure awesome!
And wasteland pieces are a marvel. I want to run them.

Background:

Puget sound is deep. Puget sound is dark. Dangerous things dance in the deeps. But Puget Sound is also productive, full of aquaculture making it (and some corps) very rich indeed. Oysters, clams, salmon, kelp, you name it.

This much food conveniently located for a major metropolis is a huge money-spinner, and a lot of people will pay a lot of money to knife each other in the gut just to jack up their profit margin for the quarter by 0.5%.

The parties:

AquEco ventures is a small local company (who are we kidding, they're a rebranded local office partly owned by Renraku and Horizon, through stock parentage) which dangles huge strings of shellfish off floating platforms all throughout the South Sound, and make sure that moronic sararimen can impress each other by telling varieties and estuaries apart by taste at 10NY a pop. A dozen on the half shell? Yours for the low price of 100NY. Of course, you paid to get in, and you're paying for the trimmings and the other courses, but their prices are (by the standards of the time and place) very reasonable.

LoCoOp is a food charity which exists to let impoverished people throw in together to get real food into their bellies. As an organisation, they have the clout to get permits done and paperwork filed, and now they've resurrected some ancient regulations which let the filthy street trash grow their own mussels, oysters, barnacles and more.

The problem:

The local entrenched corporations are very unhappy. They don't worry about a direct loss of customers, because the LoCoOp isn't entitled to sell to the public, and isn't big enough to really challenge their position. They are worried about two things:

• The principle that a bunch of thugs can wave some papers and get to join the party? Not good. They don't want people getting ideas, see?
• If Joe Greasefinger, the Ork mechanic, can suck down oysters like an oyabun, that takes some of the special out of the treat. Prices drop. This is bad for business.

The proposition:

"We represent an ... insurance concern. You'll understand that the details are confidential. We stand to lose a lot of money owing to accidents, because the government lost sight of risk profiles. The targets are stationary, floating. We need them to vanish. Sink them, remove them, we don't care how, but they are in the way of legitimate sea travel. Someone will hit them, sink, and drown. Permitting them in the first place was an act of homicidal negligence - this is just a public service, clearing the ways. We understand that charity isn't your thing, regardless of how noble the intention. but in addition to the satisfaction of saving lives, how about we sweeten it with five grand per platform removed?"

The facts:

Johnson lies. Johnson lies like a rug. There is no insurance firm involved, other than insuring AquEco's profit margins.

The platforms are makeshift, messy things, but they are legally placed, are not in sea lanes, and frankly are too wobbly to pose much risk of sinking any craft which wasn't unseaworthy in the first place.

Sinking the platforms will be very difficult. They are made of buoyant substances, so poking holes in them is irrelevant. One could weigh them down with rocks, but that doesn't really guarantee that they will stay down. Removing them is basically a towing job.

Some complications:

Maybe the street trash leave a guard, or have some kind of monitoring on there because it's not that expensive any more, and they really like their real food.

The area is probably surprisingly well lit, even at night.

Maybe AquEco have some muscular friends who will do them a few violent favours.

Aftermath ideas:

Food riots in Seattle, or at least in the Barrens.

Legislative and regulatory drama around rewriting the regs.

Someone sneakily gets red tide toxins into AquEco's stocks.

While that's not really a Redneckrun, Koekepan, I still like it. It also leaves the Runners with a moral quandry -do they do bad things to innocent people for money (as opposed to doing bad things to other guilty megacorps for money, an entirely different thing,) especially likely to touch home for some of them if they have origins in the barrens. (If any of them are from the barrens, have a family member 'link up on them while they're planning the run and ask if they want to come to seafood night, and extoll the virtues of actual, real food for a change.)

They might decide to scrub the run and tell Mr. Johnson where to stick it up his ass. Or they might get sneaky, "remove" the platforms by towing them away, getting paid, and then having the charity "find" where they stowed them all and tow them back with higher security. (They might also be able to get paid twice on this, though I'd give them a karma award if they just gave it back to them.)

Or they might indeed decide to fuck with Mr. Johnson by completely staging a massively fucked-up run wherein they run into massive and ridiculous amounts of security that they have to run from and barely escape from with their lives. They tell Mr. Johnson that the deal is off, he'd have to be paying them seventy-five grand a platform, half up-front, for them to even think about trying again, because the "charity" group obviously has some kind of powerful and wrathful patron backing and securing them.

Glad you like it. The classical rednecks are of course strictly regional, in what would be the eastern CAS, but in general, fishing, crabbing and so on are traditional rural activities, and maintaining an aquaculture installation is a dirty, out-of-town job which seems to match the overall thing I'm looking for.

After all, you can't go to tow around platforms south of the Tacoma Narrows from the heated comfort of your Americar, can you now? Nope, you're getting in some greasy tub with a bunch of individuals who spend more time smelling of old fish than showering, who have more use for a rusty truck than a shiny car, who drink all the cheap beer they can lay their hands on and who would probably think that the main problem with fishing with explosives is how the darned navy keeps finding out.

You get fishermen who go straight back to the comforts of the city, of course, but a lot of aquaculture installations are basically like farms in the shallow estuaries of rivers, and the people who work them live there.

I guess it's all in perspective.

More of a SaltedDogRun. Either way, I still liked it.

Background:

The sheriff is a man with substantial power, even in a highly urbanised area. In the wild country, he is a tiny god with a star on his chest. Even so, sometimes a sheriff needs a little work done on the quiet, because durnit, there're elections coming and country folk have long memories.

Out here where the wind whistles over sharp rock edges, and the sun will bake the life out of a hard man before it even reaches high noon, all manner of things seem to find enough shadow to do their business.

The Parties:

Sheriff Murcheson is a modern sheriff in an old, old job. He likes to take advantage of surveillance, including data surveillance, to keep a finger on the pulse of everything in his county, partly because that lets him stop trouble before it starts. He knows what to ignore, to keep the good ol' boys happy, and this makes for a peaceful life out in the country, the way everyone likes it.

Buzzardman is a smuggler. He likes gliders, because of their minute signature, and his talent for using the thermals. He will set up on top of a mesa, out of the way of prying eyes, and get up to all sorts of mischief.

Opensky is a civil libertarian with neo-anarchist leanings and a bad case of vegetarian's bad breath. And gas. Fortunately, with a well-ventilated yurt and solitary habits, those aren't big problems.

Maria Velasquez de la Cruz is the regional Mitsuhama sales rep, who keeps the sheriff well supplied with the tools and services he needs to keep his surveillance program running.

The Problem:

Buzzardman isn't a fool, which is why he's still outside a jail. In fact, he does a lot more flights which are pure surveillance on his own behalf (since gliding is cheaper than flying, he can afford to do it), and he has figured out a substantial amount about the sheriff's surveillance. This information he has shared with Opensky, with whom he is on good terms. Opensky hates it because of his politics, Buzzardman because of his activities. With this in mind, Buzzardman is now putting up drones and balloons and even a few towers which let Opensky and a few like-minded individuals circumvent the sheriff's trolling through comms data.

Buzzardman and Opensky have turned this to profit, but the sheriff's hired electron guns aren't dummies, either, and figured out what is going on, and now there's a little war of capabilities going on.

The Proposition:

"Gentlemen, we have a quiet district here, and that is exactly the way I like it. Unfortunately, we have attracted the attention of some dissidents who want to abuse our hospitality for anti-social activities. Now I'll turn you over to some of my contracted experts, and they can lay out the details for you, but rest assured that you will be doing God's work out here."

The sheriff is not doing this on his own. Maria is backing him, so he's actually spending her money and not touching public funds, but since a failure would look bad for her too, she's happy to be the silent partner. If the shadowrunners try to track a money trail to the county courthouse, they'll fail - it just never touches county coffers at all. It's actually all Mitsuhama.

It is arguably improper, but there's no paper trail, and although it looks funny, Maria and the sheriff are merely on friendly terms, no more. In the end, the shadowrunners could choose either side.

The Facts:

This is a surprisingly high-tech conflict. Big Brother (or Big Sheriff) on one side, and Disorganised Crime on the other.

The battle is for electronic dominance over hundreds of square miles. Buzzardman and Opensky are running a couple of wireless services of astonishingly useful (and surprisingly lucrative) nature, and for once in their disruptive lives it's not technically illegal. If anyone's bending the law here, it's the sheriff, who doesn't technically have the right to snoop on all communications no matter how useful it is to public order.

It is entirely possible that the runners will decide that Buzzardman and Opensky are inconvient, and want to take them out. The sheriff wouldn't cry, but doesn't want this coming back to him either, so would probably look for a way to take down the culprits while looking as much like the dedicated public servant as possible.

It is also possible that the runners will switch sides, and work against the sheriff. If Sheriff Murcheson realises this, they are going to find out just how badly their lives can start to suck.

Some Complications:

If there are open networks, they are valuable. If they dodge the big commercial links, they are more valuable. If they're somewhere between Aztlan and Denver, they are insanely valuable. A lot of people will get very upset if shadowrunners start interfering with their favourite new toy.

Maybe a rep from some other company is helping Opensky get his hands on some of the electrogoodies, to queer Maria's pitch. Maybe this rep is also providing him with other toys. Maybe a cyberhound or three to help keep him safe and keep him company.

Buzzardman has nothing but time, money, and a desire to fly his toys. He knew the runners were in town before the sheriff did. Finding him is very hard. Reaching him is harder. Surprising him is basically impossible.

Aftermath Ideas:

The sheriff, impressed with the good work of the team, wants them to do a little more vigilante-type work on the side. There are all sorts of naughty boys running around the desert, and not enough deputies to stop them all. Even a quarter's pay for a deputy is a decent payout for a single job.

Buzzardman, if favourably impressed, might sell the runners some of his custom gliders, or offer to guide the runners through the desert.

Maria might bring all sorts of additional work for the runners, if she's grateful enough.

Nice. I especially like the implication that the players could be stuck between a couple of uncomfortable hard spots, morally speaking. The Sheriff is obviously in the wrong what with his bare-cocked fucking of privacy, but the other grid becoming a major haven for Azzie intel operatives makes that a sticky tarball, too.


[e]Thinking about it, I think what I'd do is arrange for Buzzardman and Opensky to have them some SINs, if they didn't already, gather some intelligence, then have Buzzardman - harmless hang-gliding fan that he is - make a bid for sheriff opposing Burcherson on a platform of not being a privacy invading douchebag. The type of citizenry that inhabits a dustbowl like that would be properly apocalyptic if you blew the scheme wide open on them.

Background:

Farming is a hard, dirty business with low returns. Oh, sure, you can make a small fortune farming, but as with any high risk commodity business, it helps to start with a large one. You might think that a ribeye steak fetches a high price in Boston, and you'd be right, but surprisingly little of that money reaches the folks with the deep tans and rough hands.

Bearing this in mind, it should come as no surprise that very little gets farmers more excited than varmints. Most times this ends with a starlight scope, the crack of a rifle, and a new hide being tanned to make a fur collar for a denim jacket. Sometimes it takes a bit more.

The Parties:

Abraham Jeroboam Lafnitzegger, better known as Bear, by way of ironic reference to his hairless condition, and unironic reference to his three hundred and change pounds on his six foot six frame, has been farming the eastern fringes of the Cascades since his daddy left him the land. The tribes had second thoughts about letting him stay, but while he runs his farm organically and pays his taxes in full, they leave him be. However, this has left him open to some hostility, especially from the younger, more hotheaded and politically extreme braves.

Lonely Wolverine is a tribal elder who lives near Bear's land, and in days gone by spent some fondly-remembered nights sharing the same buckskin. She is trying to keep the balance, partly for reasons of sentiment, and partly because she realises that, no matter what the anti-cash activists in her tribe say, they need actual money to avoid being completely dominated by outside forces, and that Bear's orchards and meadows pay for a lot of things the tribes need.

The young bloods of the tribe want many things. They have listened to many words from modern thinkers (including those who were tribal guests, visiting from the metroplexes), who decried the ways of neon and plastic, who urged a return to more wholesome, earthwise ways, and who espoused the ancient rights and freedoms of the sovereign tribes. They want palefaces gone, they want organised agriculture in the red man's hands, or gone, and they don't see Bear's sweat, or care about the wages and taxes he pays the tribes and the tribesmen who work the fields.

The Shamans of Mother Earth mostly aren't shamans (although they generally wish they were), but a lot of them are rather idealistic anthropologists and neoprimitivist economic thinkers. Some of them are pretty darned good at wilderness survival, but basically none of them have ever produced food in large quantities, and what ideas they have on the topic tend to the utopian rather than the practical. They have formed a policlub and are happy to spend their wicked, society-poisoning, morality-subverting cash in support of the noble and clear-sighted braves of the reserves. Because that's just the right thing to do.

The Problem:

Bear had a problem. It's hard to think of elk as varmints, but when they are overpopulating and come into an orchard, they can strip it better than a cranked-up ork gang with weedeaters. They can also do major damage to a Timothy grass meadow, and in general they're just hard to get rid of. He tried to scare 'em off, but they got habituated. He tried to set his dogs on 'em, but the dogs started to get hurt and vets cost money. At huge expense, he tried to fence them out, but elk can jump high, so it didn't work too well. They can also damage fences massively when motivated, so the fences got breached while Bear watched his credstick and his land both lose condition.

Bear didn't want to tick off the tribes, so he worked with Lonely Wolverine to get permission to shoot the elk when found in depradations. The tribe did well out of it - they got every elk carcass, whole except for blood loss and bullet holes, for the price of picking it up. He didn't cheat, he didn't argue, and he didn't even carve any off for himself.

There was just one problem: he is a paleface, the elk are dead, and his farm is still there. Obviously this is evidence that the moneyed interests which back the dissolution of the tribes have subverted the elders, starting with Lonely Wolverine, and they must all pay.

The Proposition:

This comes from two directions, depending on the connections of the runners. If they are, for some reason, tribally connected, the young braves want them to perform a putsch, quietly wiping out the old guard and leaving the young braves as the new, young, tribal elders. Simple straightforward ideologically-fuelled generational and dynastic conflict. Oh, and if Bear were wiped off the scene, that would be worth a bonus, because he doesn't belong there anyway. But they're also willing to make Bear a scapegoat, and wipe him off the map as an ostensible act of revenge, getting the heat off the runners as a side-effect by how they pin the blame. That this means the young braves would be purging their own familyis something they have embraced as a necessary, noble sacrifice, evidence of their heartfelt purity of purpose.

Conversely, Lonely Wolverine, who isn't a fool, can see which way the wind is blowing, and knows very well that:

1. Money is a plain necessity in dealing with the rest of the world
2. The young braves are missing the big picture, but won't listen long enough to get it
3. Bear is beneficial, economically, and employs many otherwise indigent tribespeople
4. What the young bloods need is an outlet, a distraction, an excuse to focus on the real world while they learn
5. If there is to be a change, it might happen best if one of the braves married Bear's daughter, but frank racism makes that currently unlikely.

She doesn't want her own flesh and blood wiped out. She doesn't want Bear wiped out. She doesn't want anything wiped out. She wants the angry youngsters distracted, if necessary by turning them against each other, or if necessary by somehow getting them off the reservation. Her pet theory is that if they could be induced to turn to the shadows for a while and learn some smarts, they'd be out of her hair and fighting the Wicked Ways of the Paleface somewhere else, and if the runners can do that, she will gladly dispense either tribal cash to them, or a favourable, tradeable set of terms for the agricultural produce of Bear's lands. She has Bear's total support and cooperation in this, but for political reasons Bear wants no part of the actual negotiations.

The Facts:

Tribal politics is like a particularly ugly soap opera. When everything is going well, the whole tribe joins hands and sings with one voice. When it isn't, they will turn on each other like a pack of rabid dogs. The real big picture problem is that the tribal numbers and density have grown to the point that they have idle hands and idle minds, and this includes young men with frustrated ambitions and too little life experience and context to show them that the Shamans of Mother Earth are idealistic know-nothings who couldn't even make their own crazy plans work with a running start, let alone being capable of actually advising a people whose way of life they haven't really come to understand in economic terms, rather than merely the sociopolitical terms.

On the other hand, the young bloods aren't wrong, in one respect: the tribe runs in a way which is rather susceptible to corruption, leaving the young and underemployed with little avenue for self-improvement except to wait for the shoes of their dead elders, or to simply leave. Sure, the tribe raised and clothed and fed them, but now the tribe is holding them back. It's quite understandable that they might chafe at their circumstances, even if their analysis of their problems is faulty.

Some Complications:

Maybe some of the other tribal elders are egging the young bloods on, on the theory that they'll be the last elders left standing.

Even if Bear is going to be killed or pushed out, what happens to the farm? Maybe some conglomerate is hoping to get the farm and manage it in a mutually beneficial and remunerative fashion once the young bloods do their dirty work for them. And if the young bloods think Bear is hard to dislodge, wait until they cross swords with Ares.

Maybe Bear isn't quite the soft target everyone thinks. Maybe before his daddy left him the farm, he sowed some wild oats as a runner himself. Maybe Bear was the original contact who helped Lonely Wolverine get hold of the runners.

Aftermath Ideas:

No matter what happens with the tribe, there will be winners and losers. Who takes the blame? Do they have mirrorshades and rainbow mohawks?

If the runners follow Lonely Wolverine's pet theory and get some of the young bloods in the metroplex, doing runs against evil megacorps, now the runners are saddled with enthusiastic newbies. Oh, joy.

Background:

People in the sticks aren't only concerned with shitshovellin' and coon huntin'. Sometimes they pause in their daily chores and raise their eyes to the heavens and their voices in song. If the reverend is a good man, blessed with the ability to heal the faithful and banish demons, so much the better for the community.

Unfortunately, sometimes the community comes to disagreements, and then all those holy passions turn bad. This is what happened in Deerpark.

The Parties:

There are two factions in town. Both stem from a baptist church which is splitting on a doctrinal issue.

The original party line, supported by Reverend Martin Malcolm Davis, is that the new testament brought new grace and understanding, so that the messages of the old testament are to be de-emphasised and re-interpreted in the light of the new's teachings.

The breakaway faction, who tend to biblical literalism, figure it by a set of rules run by Reverend Kevin Bathurst. They say that you can't remove any of the bible without hurting the whole. The fact that hard times and external pressures have left them eagerly reading parts of Judges, and the minor prophets for suggestions on the fate of unbelievers, and that Reverend Kevin Bathurst is a honey-tongued former tent revival biblethumper, doesn't make the position any more stable.

The Problem:

Kevin Bathurst arrived in town, used magic (he is a competent mage) to wow the people, along with his silver speeches, and managed to get a tad fewer than half of the town's churchgoers to follow him. Not content with leaving, he worked it so that they would split the congregation, and lay claims to the assets of the original church. Mind you, he does nothing so crass himself - he just waxes eloquent about the rights of the believers, about all the hard work tied up in the tithes they have paid over the years, and so on.

Reverend Davis is much older, and gruffer, but he also thinks that this whole business is about as wicked a scam as he has ever seen, and he doesn't want what remains of his flock to be fleeced by a false shepherd, even if that false shepherd has a good line in healing magic.

The Proposition:

"Behold, this silver-tongued snake came to our town and seduced our people with false teachings and promises of his own powers, not those of faith. I don't mind people seeking salvation in their own ways, but this is wickedness, using faith and abusing talents for pecuniary gain."

"I don't want violence, and I don't want destruction. I merely want his lies unmasked for what they are, and his destructive teachings ended. Do you know that he proposed a solomonic solution for the church itself? He said that for the price of a chainsaw we could solve it all! Wanton madness."

The Facts:

Ever taken a big old bite of a peach, and found half a worm?

That is how this should feel. Nobody in this town has pure intentions, or what purity there ever was has been tainted by hatred, spite and avarice.

Bathurst is pretty low: although he would never admit it, he is very rich as a result of tent revival dealings, but really wants to have his own little kingdom to rule. Taking over spiritual mastery of a small town is his intended way of getting everything he wants.

Davis has a sweet setup, or had, and he knows it. While he does see Bathurst's scam for what it is, he does so partly because it reflects what he himself has.

The townspeople, those who still attend church, which is most of them, are somewhere between demanding lawyers, and taking up arms.

Some Complications:

The local sheriff, chief judge and others are on different sides of the split. Interlopers will have to walk a very fine line not to end up shot, with the nearest DocWagon thunderbird a long, long way off. Or in the local jail while various parties call the big city authorities to get a real ID on the scum they have on ice.

There are a lot of people with acreage and shovels. Shallow graves can be hard to find.

Maybe Davis will get help from the broader church. Maybe Bathurst has his own semi-reformed sinners to call on to help him.

Maybe two young people want to be married in the church, but can't agree on the preacher.

Maybe one of the more excitable followers of either camp wants to solve the problem by taking the church entirely out.

Maybe Bathurst preaches a more enlightened line with respect to metahumans, and this wins him external support.

Maybe bored large media representatives have come to see this as a human interest story, and either muddy the waters, or will pay for hot inside info.

Aftermath Ideas:

Maybe it ends up with a shooting fight. That might well attract national authorities.

Maybe Bathurst is forced to leave, but wants the runners to work for him later.

Maybe Bathurst takes over, and the whole thing turns cult-like, but someone wants their family extracted.

Background:

The countryside still produces a lot of food, or raw materials (soybeans, we're looking at you) but it also produces a lot of other stuff. And all this other stuff needs to be processed, packaged and shipped to market and those things don't ship themselves.

The Parties:

Gordito Gonzalez is a practically round cuban dwarf with a flourishing eximport business in the Caribbean League.

Possum mcGinty is a humanitarian who has dedicated himself to the glorious business of human happiness, from his quiet little place in the western hills of old Georgia.

The Problem:

Simple. Travel from A to B. With a cargo. WIthout unwanted attention. Across international borders. On time.

The Proposition:

"My last courier is getting his culo inspected by Bubba in the Atlanta lockup, but I don't got no time for losers, you know? I gotta business to run. He put me in the hole for a hundred thousand nuyen, and behind my ship date. Now I gotta problem, and I need you to fix it. You gotta find this gringo. You gotta pay him, and he don't take no credsticks. You gotta bring me a shopping list, and if you do it right, I make you rich. If you do me wrong, say hi to Bubba for me, understand?"

The Facts:

Gordito is a bastard. He works on leverage, and he would only work with the runners if he felt that he had real leverage over them. How this is set up is up to you, but ideally it should involve dire consequences. Gordito is not in the business of being liked, and would have no problem shooting a runner in the gut and withholding medical care just to make a point. Or having his heavies do it. And he has heavies.

Gordito hates Possum, because Possum is very good at what he does, and therefore Gordito needs him. Gordito hates needing people. Gordito tried to threaten Possum, which ended up with Possum, who is rather paranoid, wiping out several of Gordito's heavies, and handing a lot of information to the local sheriff, who just happens to be Possum's baby brother.

Possum will never willingly, knowingly do business with Gordito again. On this front, he has good cards, because he deals in things a lot of people want very badly. He has a lot of customers.

Some Complications:

This whole thing is complex, but can always get more complex by the addition of competitors, both for Possum's attention, and for Gordito's.

What if Possum, even if he is cooperative, doesn't have enough product on hand to satisfy Gordito? What if Gordito was sure Possum wouldn't, so he'd have an excuse to take it out on the runners?

What if some third party arrives with a better offer, leverage notwithstanding? What if Possum decides to sell by auction?

Possum is very paranoid. The team should never even see him.

Aftermath Ideas:

Angry Gordito, angry Possum, angry sheriff, this whole situation is as stable as a rat terrier crossed with a chihuahua.

Love them, love them. No way in hell I'd take either of them. Both of these alleged jobs sound like diving balls-first into the deep end of an Olympic swimming pool filled with molasses and moray eels.

I'd sooner run for the hills.

... for the hills, and right into the waiting mandibles of The Swarm?

The second one is a marvel, already want to run it

Background:

It ain't all cowhands and ropes n'more. Matter of fact, ain't as many cattle n'more. Urban fringes are sometimes still zoned for agriculture, and to keep that zoning and some of the privileges and lower taxes, developers make sure to keep certain activities alive. Technically, some animals count as livestock provided you sell the products. Technically some agricultural practices are illegal when applied to pets. Technically, some goldurned bunnyhuggers gonna get their asses technically perforated if'n they don't keep their technical asses in line.

The Parties:

Hillview Property Management Corporation is a company which owns swaths of land on the outer fringes of the Seattle Enclave. They rent this land for residential and some light industrial and retail purposes. All very normal, urban fringe type stuff. They save a lot of money by keeping the land technically in rural zoning, which they do by maintaining a network of carefully placed dovecotes, rabbit hutches, greenhouses, orchard trees, vermicomposting sheds, mushroom houses and so on. They hire a few folks to take care of the farming concern, and while it costs them plenty, the products sell well and the farming easily pays for itself.

The Shamans of Mother Earth hate Hillview. It is a scar on the land, when all these people could (and should) be living in a high density arcology, rather than leafy extended suburbia. They want the houses flattened, the installations broken open, and the land rehabilitated.

All Sentients Rights Organisation is less interested in the urban planning issues than in the animal agriculture. Specifically, they would cheerfully see Armando the ork farmhand swing from a treebranch, rather than have him perpetuate the keeping of caged rabbits.

Tom Grady is a man who used to be a farmer before the corps used him like a tampon and threw him out. Now he counts himself lucky to be the farm manager for Hillview. He has true passion for the way of life, and no patience for folks who don't understand that. And yes, that is a sixgun on his belt, and a 30-30 in his truck. He can hit a raccoon offhand at sixty yards with the sixgun, and a hundred and twenty with the rifle. Funny, a raccoon is about the same size as the lethal zone on a man's torso.

Coordinated Living Corp is a medium scale arcology and high rise dense residential developer, an A corp which wants to move into the enclave, and is licking its lips at the land run by Hillview.

SafeAsHouses, Inc. is a joint venture between an assortment of megacorps dedicated to building standard secure communities. They, too, would love to use Hillview's land, but not zoned as is.

The Problem:

That depends on whose point of view you take. In the big picture, it's a property dispute, reflecting land ownership, usage, and rights.

Hillview sees nothing wrong with the status quo, and will fight to defend it, complaining about how the big boys want to roll right over them all the while.

The government wants more taxes, but doesn't want to anger the residents.

Tom wants to hold to what little of the life is left him.

Coordinated Living Corp and SafeAsHouses, Inc. both want to make a lot of money, and want small fry out of the way. Currently they are unaware of each other, but Coordinated Living Corp is sponsoring the Shamans of Mother Earth to try to work through the government to undermine the legitimacy of Hillview, while SafeAsHouses, Inc. is using All Sentients Rights Organisation to try to undermine Hillview's financial situation so that they will willingly sell.

The Proposition:

This could come from nearly any of the parties - they could all use a team of runners for their own purposes, but perhaps a more interesting take is from some of the residents:

"There's something going on. Hillview won't admit to anything, but you just need to see the news to see the pressure building in the government. They never cared before, so why now? What changed? And what will happen to us?"

"I like it here. We get a discount on real food, and my son is allergic to soy. These terrorists keep coming here and breaking open the animal cages - they don't care what is at stake. We've seen them at the schools, trying to indoctrinate the kids. This has to stop."

The Facts:

The Shamans of Mother Earth and All Sentients Rights Organisation have no clear idea that they are being used. Both have been infiltrated by provocateurs, who have been funnelling money, weapons and information to the broader groups. Blowing that open would be hard, but smart hackers who have some idea where to start looking could unmask the infiltrators, which would result in real internal crises of legitimacy. On the other hand that would only count as a temporary setback for the corps.

Tom and his farmhands have tangled with both organisations multiple times, and now go nowhere unarmed. They all stay in touch with each other, and Tom, who like most modern farmers is half rigger (using a net rather than an implant) is busy designing some sniper drones for when shit gets bad.

Hillview knows what is up with respect to the larger corps, but is keeping it very secret because they don't want panic. Of course, it is not a strategy which is working for them.

Some Complications:

A disproportionate number of Hillview residents are elves. Maybe this turns into a racial thing too. Maybe they called on some friends from the Tir, on their own account.

Maybe Tom wants to take over the whole business himself, and doesn't care about Hillview losing money as long as the land doesn't get rezoned or bought out. Or Tom doesn't care about the land as long as he can make enough to get a parcel of land or even a floor of an arcology to farm.

Maybe someone in the community has the bright idea of trying to get people interested in gentrifying the Redmond Barrens instead, and some gangs hear a garbled version of that plan. And don't like it.

Aftermath Ideas:

All Sentients Rights Organisation freed a lot of rabbits, and now there is a destructive feral population consuming all green things.

Tom gets a parcel of land, and still can't get the organisations off his back and wants help.

The enclave government is holding a vote on rezoning, and the voting members need persuasion.

Background:

This is a quick, easy mini-run for the violently inclined.

The Parties:

Old Ma Wilson has a bit of land she farms - mostly some corn, and other veggies, which keeps her in cash. She does all right, but she's getting on and can't move the same way she used to when she would dance the night away.

Oink. Oink-oink. SKRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYOIK.

The Problem:

The feral hogs. They come at night, or around dawn, and root out what they don't eat. If she were a little more spry, it'd be her granmaw's hog jowl recipe and sausages in the freezer, but now she needs some fine young folks to lend an old woman a hand.

The Proposition:

"Kill 'em. Kill 'em all, kill 'em dead. Bring me the corpses, I'll fix y'all a feed like you ain't never had. I got hickory an' cherrywood for the smoker, jes' waitin'."

The Facts:

Fifty acres, several shooting lanes and a known hole in the fence.

Uh, did anyone realise these were awakened hogs? They're huge, have tusks as long as a baby's arm, wicked smart, and run like fiends. And they believe in vengeance.

Some Complications:

A hog shaman, maybe? An old enemy?

Aftermath Ideas:

Not too many - this is just something to do while they are knocking about the countryside.

Still, with over a thousand pounds of smoked sausage per corpse average return, it'll take a while to make and eat.

These are fantastic. Before I started reading this thread I wouldn't have had much interest in running any kind of rural game, but some of these are just too good to pass up.

Edit: Since you've asked, I WOULD write up an adventure idea I had, then remembered that I actually got it from another book I'd read recently. Whoops.

And now a run with slightly greater complexity.

Background:

Morimoto Organics runs a large greenhouse operation - about two hundred acres. Their special sauce is that instead of riggers, they have robots managed by a substantial, if limited AI system (about as smart as a rat) handling everything from examining the catfish and tilapia in the aquaculture setups through picking the organic strawberries. They have a deeply integrated set of systems, with their greenhouses three high, shade tolerant creatures and plants at the bottom ... it's impressive. It is also high security. There are cyberhounds patrolling the area, there are spirits watching the area, it's a serious place.

Morimoto is actually a front company for Combined RoboLab, which is its sole owner. Combined RoboLab is doing its best to push the automation technology to the limit, and is having substantial luck doing just that. Unfortunately, a lot of people know about Combined RoboLab, and don't care for it. The competition doesn't like its competition, the labour movement doesn't like the fact that Combined RoboLab is trying to work them out of jobs, and so on. If they knew that Combined RoboLab were on the cusp of automating farming out of existence, at least for a vast majority of farming, there would be all kinds of trouble.

Coordinated Living Corp has seen Morimoto Organics, and likes what it sees, but wants it for its own arcologies. The idea of hands-off arcology agriculture, possibly combined with arcology indoor park management, is something they find incredibly appealing.

Natural Specialties is a front corporation for Coordinated Living Corp. Ostensibly, Natural Specialties runs a small farm (forty acres) on which they keep Awakened critters for the purposes of making telesma, selling for various special purposes such as cockatrice security patrols, and all the rest of the usual plans. This is true, as far as it goes, but Natural Specialties was really created to make plausible inquiries from Morimoto Organics so that Coordinated Living Corp could get an advantageous deal on the robotics in Morimoto.

In the mean time, Horizon has been paying careful attention to this whole business, and their subsidiary, Outdoors Indoors LLC, is a serious competitor to Combined RoboLab. Outdoors Indoors LLC doesn't know about the link between Combined Robotics and Morimoto Organics, but is working up a series of drones for office plant and fancy household greenery maintenance.

In another part of the corporate universe, UFPKW (United Farm, Processing and Kitchen Workers) is doing its very best to fight Outdoors Indoors LLC and Combined Robolab at every juncture. They're lobbying government to require metahuman oversight over all food production systems, they're fighting the robots in court on every imaginable food and industrial safety front, they're fighting in every available medium to paint robotic farming and all its cousins as utterly evil. They're pushing for HANDGROWN labels and standards, versus MACHINEPRODUCED with mandatory label display. It's getting ugly.

The Parties:

Kazuo Morimoto is a happy man. He gets paid twice: once by Morimoto Organics (over the table) and once by Combined Robolab (quietly). His job is to make sure that Combined Robolab can run, test and improve their robotics in Morimoto Organics safely, that they get their data, and that nobody gets to hear about the real deal. Since he's the sole proprietor of Morimoto Organics, except for Combined Robolab as a silent (and hidden) partner, the considerable profits land pretty much straight in his pocket.

Evgeny Gureyev is a manager for Natural Specialties, and he leads something of a double life. On the one hand he's a business specialist with an interest in magical materials, and on the other he is an agent with marching orders from Coordinated Living Corp.. If he can bring good technologies back to Coordinated Living Corp., he gets bonuses in six figures or higher. This makes him a very motivated man.

Wei Wengang is a manager with Outdoors Indoors, who really wants to make sales to Coordinated Living Corp., rather than having them work up their own technologies. This means that he has to stay ahead of anything they could develop themselves, which means that he takes a definite interest in what's going on at Morimoto Organics.

Steve "The Chef" Upton is a major mover in UFPKW, having been a shop steward for years, and now one of the union administration. He's a big, muscular troll who has worked as a butcher and a line cook, but like most of his type saw that the big money and influence were in climbing the union ladder. Since he's not stupid, he did that fairly well, and now he's looking at robotic kitchens, robotic farming and drones and all the rest of it, and seeing that the union is just losing traction. What's worse, the real union boosters are getting more and more politically extreme, he realises full well that the union gravy train is grinding to a halt, especially in this line of business. He wants one last throw to stave it off just long enough for him to retire, and then the whole thing can go to hell as far as he's concerned.

Vincent Straticelli is a fixer of some repute, with something of a specialty in data, leading through blackmail, to more violent means of extortion. He has original mafia connections, which also lead through the unions.

The Problem:

Several people all wanting different things. And not one of them honest about what they want.

Vincent is the Johnson who is representing Steve Upton, but will drop cookie crumbs leading snoopers to believe he is representing Wei Wengang at Outdoors Indoors. The story is that it's a combined data steal and sabotage run. However, the data steal isn't just logging in somewhere and taking data - there's some of that, sure - but there's also animal and plant identification and wrangling involved. Why? Because Johnson also got contacts from Evgeny Gureyev, who wants all that data. Johnson figures that if he can get DNA samples and all the rest of it from the various critters as well as the drone data and agronomic and structural information, Evgeny will pay out and pay out big. The sabotage is intended to interrupt Morimoto's development of a really slick robotic system, on Steve Upton's behalf. Johnson guesses that Steve doesn't want the data getting out, but also guesses that if Steve doesn't know that Evgeny got the data, he'll still pay.

The real problem which Johnson has is that Morimoto is surprisingly well defended, and that actual animal handling skills are thin on the ground these days. Why would he try to finger Wei Wengang? Because Wei Wengang screwed him on a deal years ago, and this seems like perfect payback. A truly dedicated team who does great legwork should be able to figure this out and may be able to piece together Johnson's web of lies, but Johnson's story is surprisingly plausible. It makes sense that Wei would want the data and the opposition crippled, and that a doublecross from years ago was forgotten.

The Proposition:

"Hey, I'm so glad you could come, siddown, take a load off. Listen, I need some special skills - people who can actually handle animals. Real, live animals, you know? No, that's no joke. The, uh, organisation I represent is concerned that there has been data theft, including DNA, so they need the actual samples. Plants, animals, everything in the target zone needs to be sampled."

"I won't lie to you, there's security. We know they got drones, we assume there is other surveillance, this will take a smart touch to disable so the real work can be done. Don't worry, it's worth your while."

"Once you have the data - DNA, robotics, you name it, it's worth it - release this into their air conditioning. It's a viral infection, not harmful to metahumans, but I wouldn't breathe it, so do it on the way out. Also, wipe their computers. Just - wipe 'em out. Use an axe, use a program, I don't care how. Data goes byebye."

"OK, the money. Take the job? Twenty thousand up front, and that's serious. Then, five grand for each species you sample, of animals, one grand for each plant species. Robotic or drone schematics? Two grand each. Robotic control data? Ten grand each. Drop in the virus, whack the data, we're talking another twenty grand and those are the easiest parts of the whole job. Even if you fuck it all up, and I know you won't, if you just burn the place to the ground? Ten grand on top of the twenty you got at first. Now, you can't tell me that ain't generous."

The Facts:

The very moment, the second that Morimoto confirms an attack, he will call in a security team from Lone Star, as well as corporate security from Combined RoboLab, and these boys will not kid around. His drones will also go on full, immediate defensive. The drek will be heavier than an elephant overcoming constipation.

Also, the data is backed up offsite. Of course it's backed up offsite. However, the hacker should be able to figure this out and discover the offsite location, without which some of the money won't be coming their way. Vincent's canny enough to know this, and hopes to save some money off the top by pointing that out.

Some Complications:

There's a lot of money in this. Maybe there's another team trying the same run. Maybe that makes things ugly.

Maybe some of the animals aren't so easy to wrangle, and resent it. Octopus puts on protein very quickly, and sells for good money. Awakened octopus doesn't want its DNA sampled, and does resent the intrusion.

The nature of this whole run means that it isn't a quick, slick in-and-out job. Vincent knows this. He is quietly counting on the runners, if they don't do everything perfectly, getting wiped out on site and still doing enough damage that he can collect from Steve Upton. It's not a suicide run, but cocky runners could easily find themselves in way over their heads. This is an ideal run for teaching players humility.

Aftermath Ideas:

Viral diseases spreading, affecting food security.

Corporate wars with multiple runs on arcologies.

Trips way out of town to collect more samples, or replacements for Morimoto.

This thing has legs, the GM just needs to stretch them.

Awww shucks. You make an old country boy blush.

Thank you for your generous praise. I hope you run them in good health.

The smart answer, then, is to just cruise up all quiet-like, lob a few grand worth of incendiaries at the place, torching it to the ground and skedaddle, collecting an easy 30,000 and being way the hell out of the area anytime before Lone Star shows up.

You're right, of course, but I've never known a shadowrunning team that didn't have one dedicated servant of avarice on board. Something about the way all those zeroes look on the credstick. Something about the price of that next technotoy, and something about the way they keep having to spend on bribes and stuff.

On the other hand, there is an avaricious argument to be made for doing it that way, too.

A cruise and burn can be thrown together in one night; a few quick drone recon probes to see if they have any heavy artillery capable of threatening a Rigger's road-tank, some astral probes to see if they have any serious Astral security, then you cruise up quiet-like under the cover of a high-force Concealment power, make with the willy peter to set the place ablaze and skedaddle. You can collect 30,000 for one day's work, while doing the full job is likely to take a week of legwork alone.


[e]And if you did that, of course, you also get to keep Mr. Johnson's germ warfare contribution. God knows what that stuff's worth in the Shadows, if you're avaricious enough to actually sell it rather than destroying it. If he asks, tell him you lobbed it in for good measure, and if he complains that there's no sign of any viral infections, hey, I guess all that blazing white phosphorous must have sterilized it.

I guess it comes down to the nature of the group for which you're running. My usual group has two members who don't count a run as done until they've squeezed Johnson's credstick like a lemon. If I had players like you ... well, give me a little bit and maybe I'll come up with something suitable.

The only hole I see in the scenario as it's written is that if the hacker is good enough to get control of the system away from the AI managing it, all that centrally-controlled security is going to fall victim to what I like to call "lolhax" and let the PCs breeze through the mission on easy mode. If you can hack the system to disable it, why not just disable the call to Lone Star and take over the security system yourself? That option would probably be even less work than driving by and firebombing the place, since you don't have to worry about physical or astral security at all, and at worst they'd get paid for stealing as much paydata as they can before wiping it and burning the place down with its own security drones. (Judging by the templates in Unwired, protosapient AIs are comparable to many runner hackers in terms of their actual hacking/cybercombat skills.)

The easiest solution to that would probably be to decentralise the node and/or throw in some kind of really irritating hacking speed bump that's easier to get around if they're on-site (passkey stolen from a guard, maybe). Personally, I'd probably have two separate nodes with the AI and the lower-security maintenance drone controls in a less-powerful node with no connections to other nodes (to prevent fears of a Deus rehash) and a separate node with higher security that was monitored by a spider, linked to the off-site backups and controlled the various security systems. One of the metahuman employees could just physically walk a chip from server to server every day to do the transfer to the off-site backups through the security node.

Other than that, looks great. For some reason I think the phrase "Awakened octopus resents the intrusion" is hilarious and keep imagining it as a meme of some kind.

Not quite. You can hack the computers until they think they're pacman machines, but the spirits and automated sprinklers and so on would still be funtional. Sure, you'd have some cash from the data steal, but there is an element of defence in depth at work. Add the cyberhounds and it gets uglier.



The big problem is that I know far too much about real information security. A research station I designed would have redundant, independent health monitors watching multiple independent systems as well as some serious honeypots, and air gaps on all crucial controllers so as to prevent worst case data loss, and offsite duplicate streaming of all health and surveillance data in encrypted channels with onsite durable nearline storage for retention and analysis using a quorum based access system and staggered maintenance periods and.....

But in the end hackers sulk when I do that.

Stiil, new .sig.

Ahh, that makes more sense. In that case, yes, I think it would work beautifully for those players that don't like letting go of a run until they've done EVERYTHING. (I blame years of computer RPGs that reward you for inspecting every object in every room on the map.)



I'd actually be curious to see whether a player hacker could get through something like that. I guess it does put a damper on feeling like a hero to keep running into virtual walls all the time, though.



Woohoo!

What I usually do is try to remember that regular humans run those systems, and don't really build them well.

That said, what I thumbnailed could be defeated with Sixth World tech. Start by decrypting the offsite data links and use them to list what is there as well as what regular patterns of activity are. This will get you some idea of the attack surface as well as surveillance capabilities, i.e. what to spoof.

From there, it's standard, if a pain.

I'm afraid this one might be a little different. Apologies for the change of format.
This is intended for someone following the investigator's way in the shadows, not for a shooting team.

Many a long year ago, the hardy people of the swamplands learned how to support themselves with crawfish, with catfish, with rice paddies and with gator.

The War of Northern Aggression came and went, and changes came and went, but the people still paddle their flat bottomed boats around, hitching them to old stumps and setting traps in the old way.

The years changed, and the fine folks were surprised to find that there really was magic in the old ways, and in the old rhythms, but the folk who knew what it was like to be the horse, and be ridden, just smiled. It was no surprise to them.

Mama Grenouille remembers some of the old songs, and on some nights when the moon shone the right way between the needles of the swamp trees, the spirits which came for comfort around her stove would teach her others. She is a woman of weight, literally and figuratively, and now that the savagery of the storms has torn away so many of the fine people's dams and levees, and the swamp has its own defences, she has become one of the pillars of its new form.

Mama has problems, but what old woman doesn't? Her knee twinges - not for the weather, though that as well - but for trouble, and lately it has been so that she could hardly shuffle from her bed to her rocking chair, where she rocks and fans herself while Lucille, her granddaughter, takes care of Mama's hut in the swamp. Lucille, too, hears the spirits and sings the old songs, but when people come with heavy questions burdening their hearts it is Mama who clears away their confusion while Lucille sits by in silence, with her large, dark eyes watching and learning, and her rich, full lips closed and silent.

Mama teaches Lucille, and guards her like a treasure, but she knew that times would change, and one day a young man came, with his dull, swamp water stained ball cap held respectfully in hands which twisted it and fretted at the brim, and wanted to speak with Mama, but about Lucille. For all his soft words and the gift he brought of fresh caught crawdads, he was very courageous, because his family, the Leclercs, had long held themselves aloof, and Antoine, the head of that family, was a man who believed that there were two things in the world: the christian bible, and evil, and that Mama Grenouille was the source of much of that evil. Mama saw nothing good in the match, and sent him away, crawdads and all.

He came again, sometimes once every week, sometimes less frequently, but always polite, and always bringing a gift. Sometimes it was pitch for Mama's boat, sometimes beeswax, sometimes rice or cut wood or cloth, but he always brought something. Mama always turned him away, but he never complained.

It has been a year now, and Lucille has not had other men come to Mama's place, nor has she sought them out, but Francois Leclerc came of his own accord and only he.

Finally it came to Mama that the dynasty and the tradition, however modest, would end with Lucille if there was no man, whether or not he brought trouble, and therefore one evening she accepted the gift he brought (a fishing rod cut from a bamboo stand, perfectly straight and supple as a whip) and let him sit on the edge of her porch, while Lucille sat near. They didn't say a word, but Lucille watched him, and he watched her until the owls hooted. Then he quietly got up, said his farewells to Mama, and left.

He has not been back since, and it has been two months.

Mama wants to know where he is, and why he did not return.

Some Facts:

Francois has eyes only for Lucille, but he has a jealous cousin, Yvonne. Yvonne is annoyed because by her reckoning she's far enough removed to be his wife (and the old laws agree with her) but he shows no interest in her. Yvonne watched Francois closely enough to realise that he must be seeing some girl, but getting constantly rebuffed because he kept on returning with his gifts. However, Yvonne was clever and realised that Francois would leave in the same direction every time, so she gradually, secretly set a watch, finding the direction in which he went, following his path and waiting for him further down until she finally spotted him from up a big pine, at a distance, on the edge of Mama's porch.

What Yvonne doesn't know, and nobody in the Leclerc family knows, is that Francois is a shaman, and has learned from Snake's whispering in the reeds. Mama has realised that he is talented, but is unsure of his capacity. At any rate, she wouldn't object if she knew, but he has been so careful and so secretive, that it's pretty much his secret. Lucille guesses that there is something uncommon about him, but she has less experience with auras than does Mama, and he has never worked magic in front of either of them.

Yvonne decided to solve her problem by spilling the beans, hoping that she would find favour with Antoine, and keep Francois home at one stroke. The plan worked great at first - Antoine praised her for doing holy work, and then thundered at Francois, telling him to fetch a switch with which the evil could be purged from him. Francois left - but never returned with a switch. A search for him revealed that he had left with a flatboat, fishing gear, and a twelve gauge. He hasn't been seen since.

Antoine is furious, and Yvonne is torn between heartbreak and bitter satisfaction - at least she has ascertained that he didn't show up at Mama's, and that suits half her plan.

In actual fact, Francois only took those things as decoys. He sent the boat downstream to get lost far away, while he walked away from the swamp. It made him quite sad to leave, but he knew that if he went straight to Mama and Lucille, he would precipitate far greater conflict, so instead he headed for Covington.

In Covington, Francois had to recognise that he had little of value and little more to offer, so he hitched a ride with All Wheels Flat, an ork trucker who's also a a smuggler of gator skins. He had hoped to reach New Orleans, in the hopes of joining the fisheries, but Lone Star swooped down on All Wheels Flat, changing plans in a hurry.

To be continued.