So, I have my runners going into a cargo ship today. There is a free spirit that went mad and killed a good 90% of the crew on the ship. What I want to do is harass the players every now and then with animated corpses. What is the most effective way to do this in Shadowrun that you can think of? Or, better yet, what is the most creative way?

Simple and effective: Spirit with Inhabitation . . or Possession? Not sure what's needed for corpses . .
And you can't really be creative with this, since it does not work in any other way . .
Only one other way is possible at all, and that one is simply not good enough to consider for use anyway.
That is the animate spell.

Shedim but the question comes do you want to harass them or murder them.

Shedim.

Nanohives inserted into the brain to control the CNS.

Ah, right, i forgot about the stirr-up-system . .
Basically a remote control move by wire system . .
But that is not really allowed for metahuman bodies at all, neither alive nor dead . .
You would open up all kinds of things you really don't wanna . .

Haha, hehe, hahaha!

Possession spirit in a prepared vessel. See SM 86, 87.

Monofilament Wire and a Puppeteer.

Watcher spirits possessing bodies, aka corpse cadavers, make for spooky but easily-blown-away zombies.

Right...I had thought about Shedim before, but I don't know if they're very tough or not. I've only read some into what a Shedim is and can actually do. Also, the reason all of this cargo ship is dead is because of a very old free spirit that's trapped inside of a magical artifact. I don't know if it could produce Shedim or not. And I had thought of the animate spell as well, but didn't think it'd do much good.

"Zombies" in Shadowrun are Shedim, Possession, Inhabitation, or Cyberzombies. You can have a free spirit with either Inhabitation or Possession in the corpse if you don't want to use a Shedim.

Or for 28-days-later zombies . . mindless ghouls . .

Doesn't "have" to produce Shedim. Let just have a swarm lower-level shedim posess them. If they are very low level they are pretty stupid, will avoid the more powerful spirit and still be there. Doesn't have to work for the big bad guy.

I still get the image of Fallout 3 Feral Ghouls in my head about them...

Too much playing that game, I think, and so many of them around.

or you could always make up a new HMHVV strain for the purposes of the game

would make leaving the ship quite a risk

*nods*
the glowy ones were a nasty surprise <.<
and the reavers were even worse . .

On a ship... Cthulhu sticking his hands/tenticles in the backs of the animated corpses and using them like Jeff Dunham.

Welp. Now I'm going to have to dig into my archives and find my copies of GURPS' Cthulhupunk and Illuminati...

This.




-k

Dude, that would be Return of Deus

Bah, Deus would make that puny thing it's slitch.

and i knew what it was before clicking the link . .

Or some similar bio or nano under development for military use. Think something that can be sprayed on a battlefield to create metahuman biodrones.

Could be the latest crazy out of Aztech for the Amazonia war.

Modified Chaotic World illusion, the PC's that fall for it are seeing zombies, really it's just the crew reacting to armed invaders on their boat

Or let zombies appear via Trid Phantasm.

You could consider the Animate spell itself.

I like the idea of a small BC that attracts free low-level possession spirits and possession watchers for Corpse Cadavers. The HMHVV is asking for too much, in my opinion. Go for Force 3, maybe Force 4 spirits - you should be fine. A GM friend of mine took 8 or so F4 Inhabitation spirits in special dogs that I made (cost 81,900 each!) and nearly wiped his team of pro runners with them. Use of terrain, spirit powers, and the natural benefits of Inhabitation Hybrid-Form Merges does wonders, even with very low Force spirits.

EDIT:

Fire Dog

"Running Wild" mentions calling wild spirits with a specific ritual, not restricted to mages. You're bargaining with the spirits rather than just summoning them. See "Chaffering with Demons", p. 174.
No reason why a big, bad, ugly and old free spirit shouldn't be able to do that.
There even is a specific spirit that might fit your Zombie needs, the Snatcher (p. 180, same book). No sapience, feral, aggressive, carnivorous (kind of), hopefully not too dangerous with a low force attribute (mind possession attribute boosts and immunities!), also able to possess animals, if need be.
The Animate spell will work for simple harassment, but won't present any real danger, as the moving objects/corpses will only do that, move, no attacking at all.
The technological ideas are great, but I don't think this is really the way some ancient free spirit would do things, SOTA-technologies and all.

I agree.

If you want the spirit and only the spirit to be the problem, watcher spirits and lower force spirits being orchestrated by the free spirit is perfect.

As a side note, if it was mine and the PCs knew about the problem, they would go armed for spirit war. You could throw some other problems at them as well to keep them off balance. Paracritters come to mind, or even feral ghouls. They would not be directly related to the spirit, but they would be things stowed away that come out for easy food. Easy check against players armed vs spirits.

Also, not to be evil, but the boat itself could be possessed by a spirit as well. Since spirit possessed articles can move things and such, "the door slams shut behind you" gains a whole new meaning.

Hrmm, possessed ship with the accident power... hope you wore a helmet or your forehead will be shaped like a bulkhead

Scotty:"I know this ship like the back of my hand." *runs straight into low beam and knocks himself out*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...vkUMHra8#t=105s

So Scotty wasn't a Tech, he was a mage feeding the ship karma in the form of his fellow red shirted support staff

Well then it's a damn good thing they went through so many Enterprises under Kirk... just imagine if it'd been the same one all those years!

~Umi

Why do you need an explanation at all? If they are magically animated bodies then that is enough. It is one more thing for the players to fear:
"You're the magic boy, what can do that?"
"I have no idea."
"You have a PhD. "
"I know and I have no idea."
"oh....RUN!"

Well THERE'S your problem!

*nods*
should have gone for the voodoo-doc-certificate . .

hmmm....T-Virus anyone?