The wish list is for items to be acquired with some or all of the 100,000 nuyen each of you gets up front, from the contacts the Spaniard had built up. One-time access to difficult to acquire items without the annoyance of availability tests.

Note to Void: The rest has helped his memory. The weapons that were captured with the prisoners are two of the models that were up for sale at Ivan's, but sold out when Void got there. See IC post #51, SHIAWASE ARMS TACTICAL MODEL 69 Sniper Rifle and SHIAWASE ARMS TACTICAL MODEL 73 assault rifle.

Called it. Huzzah.

My list is in post 67 in this OOC thread.

I remember that OOC, i think, although I doubt Void has quite made the connection with Ivan IC. He would be interested in the sniper rifle, but only after we have decided whether to kill the two orks or court them as allies. The assault rifle, he wouldn't even know how to use. Zo might want it.

Just a quick question--Glyph, should your post be Tuesday, the 15th?

Right you are. Fixed.

I am trying to figure out what astral defenses Jovan would have put up within the warehouse (size, number, and position of wards, mainly) after he woke up and while the team was still sleeping, as well as the exact data searches he would have done in the Spaniard's files for his Renfield "side project." However, since I've been neck-deep in a family move for the last week and a half, I do not know where my copy of Street Magic is, and I don't have an electronic copy. Could someone kindly remind me what the names and requirements are for the SM advanced ward types?

Double post.

They use the same test as basic wards, but with a Threshold of 3, and a lot of them require the creator to have a certain metamagic. They are Alarm wards, Charged wards (require the Reflecting metamagic), Masking wards (require the Masking metamagic), Polarized wards, and Trap wards (require the Anchoring metamagic).

Thanks Glyph.

To set a cover for additional magical defenses later, Jovan would put a force 4 Masking ward over the entire warehouse. Based on the description, I guessed that it's on the larger side of small warehouses, and assumed 40 ft by 40 ft (12.2 by 12.2 meters). But that would put the warehouse volume at a bit under 1000 cubic meters - is this correct, pbangarth? If so, even with four watchers and a force 4 spirit helping, Jovan would have to boost his Magic to 12 in order to put up a ward that big. So how about this instead:

• Have a spirit scout out the surrounding area for an isolated individual, such as a dock squatter
• Jovan goes to said person himself using Movement, immobilizes and drains 3 Essence, and wipes the target's memory of the attack with Alter Memory (so as to not leave any evidence)
• With Essence now at 14 (from the 11 it was at after the nightclub attack with Zayne), Jovan burns 6 essence to bring his Magic up to 7
• He summons four watchers and keeps the F4 spirit from before (or summons a new one if he didn't get enough services the first time)
• Jovan wakes up Professor and requests assistance with putting up the ward around the whole building for 4 hours (so that Professor's Magic can make up the difference)

I would think they would finish that task around 5:30 or 6:00 am, if Jovan can locate and Drain a target fairly quickly. Does that work for you, pbangarth? He would spend the few hours after that combing through the Spaniard's files and collating a list of all of the Spaniard's former contacts in Seattle. He's still looking for relatively young people, especially Awakened, who might fit the description he discussed with Zayne in IC post 48.

I was going to offer some Data Search rolls to accompany that, but Invisible Castle has been down for over a month, I think - does anyone know what happened to it this time?

I'll give this idea some study and get back to you.

No, I don't know what happened ti Invisible Castle. If it is down when we need it, I'll take your word for rolls you do at home with dice. Or, if someone has a suggestion for another online dice roller, we could try that.

Rolz.org might be a possibility.

Prof, you never got back to me on this!--

PS:Is invisible castle down again?

I was kind of waiting for an answer from Professor as well, but pbangarth appears to have gotten distracted again. I will summon him. In the meantime, let's just continue on without him, I guess.

pbangarth appears before Sephiroth in a cloud of wood shavings and mosquitoes. He is pock-marked with insect bites and has multiple bruises on his hands. In one hand he holds a wet wipe and in the other a very full and steaming diaper.

"Sorry, man." he says. "Er ..." he looks at the diaper. " ...family stuff ... happened.

"I'll get on the story now before the weekend. Weekends are bad. Very bad. 'Bout a hundred dollars.

"The second team idea sounds interesting, but Professor doesn't have the connections to line them up by himself. Maybe contacting a fixer contact would work. Once we have an idea of what the job is. But ... this then would require the GM who has been spottily online to run two runs at once. You sure you want to do that?"

He shakes his head and some sand flies out of one ear.

OK, back to you. I'll have sporadic internet till Monday, but I'll keep up as well as I can.

Holy crap, it worked! I should invoke that summoning ritual to the Metaplane of Canadian Wilderness more often, ne?


Also... that's what ludicrously powerful possession tradition magicians with large numbers of bound spirits are for.

Using Zo's knowledge of criminal hangouts, I got 2 successes out of 7 dice. What does Zo know about DeClerry's other than what Professor already told him?

Also 3 successes on knowing Cargo Bill (6 dice, black market weapons dealers)--so what does Zo know in addition to what professor just told him?

Man, I have to remember Void's knowledge skills. I rolled 5(!) hits for his black market knowledge skill, but it probably has a high threshold because it is such a broad knowledge skill.

Ahhh... is that a subtle reminder of something you did a while ago?

I'm going out of town early tomorrow, but should be back Sunday night. I'll figure out what Void might know. 5 hits is still pretty good.

Sorry, caught in job search and family stuff. In and out of internet till 9 July. Will post as soon as I can. Aside from the Void thing, anything else I owe? Rattle my chain if so.

Just my knowledge skill checks.

We are dying.

A knowledge skill check to help me write my post: Intuition 6 + Plotting 1 = 7d6 = 2 hits for recognizing who would be prime targets for corruption in law enforcement (based on how RL organized crime works).

pbangarth, not to sound like I have ulterior motives or anything, but what point did you have in mind for dolling out our next karma awards? Given our current tremendous slowdown, and the fact that we completed the strike against the Spaniard's apartment and escaped intact, maybe this'd be a good time to do that. Boost our engagement and all that.

@all - Is the FBI still around in the UCAS? Does anyone know what became of it after most/all the state police departments were privatized into Lone Star?

I do really like the idea of going to Lone Star as opposed to someone else, though - would be a perfect chance to start looking for someone to turn into a vampire pawn.

There are still feds - government agent is one of the contacts in Sprawl Sites and (for a later example) a Real Life module in Life Modules - but like the regular armed forces, they have been sharply curtailed in both numbers and power.

They have only been curtailed insomuch as corporate exterritorality. They can't enforce federal laws in the Azzie Pyramid, as that is basically consider Azzieland. The do still exist and have some power, but not as nearly as much as in RL. I think there is a bit about them in one of the SR2 era sourcebooks, NA guide to North America, Target UCAS, or Shadows of North America.

Well... been away and then several days of thinking something screwed up with my WIFI when actually moving some furniture around simply interfered with my desktop's reception. Duh. So, I'm back in contact. At the cottage till 5 Aug., but good connection here at the local store. I'll be posting more frequently now, I promise.

OK, karma!

Everybody:

5 karma for the events since the last award.
+2 karma for the Players' patience with me.

Void:

+2 karma for having, and using, exactly the right skill to sneak up on guys that were meant to surprise and severely challenge all three of you together. I was afraid I was going to have to obviously interfere to keep Void and Zo alive.
+1 karma for quotations. They allow Professor to be academic once in a while. God knows he's not a runner!

Jovan:

+1 karma for the neat idea to blow your way out of the trap at the underground garage. What was coming for you was worse than the two snipers.
+1 karma for continuing to entertain me with paranoia and conspiracy theories... some of which have provided me with run ideas!

Zo:

+1 karma for scaring the shit out of Jovan and Professor. Continue to keep us on our toes!
+1 karma for being the anchor of the crew. Both Void and Jovan wander off into Lala Land on occasion. Zo is always there, always professional (if also a bit coarse).

Players: Go ahead and spend karma right now if you want. Check the postings of your PCs' stats and let me know what needs updating. I'm going to slightly remodel Professor to make him better fit his new role as fixer/Johnson rather than a neophyte runner. Nevertheless, he is going to have to grow through the story arc just to survive, as will you all. No desire to direct your PCs' growth, but along with interesting puzzles, there will be more, and more severe, physical threats along the way.

I am now going to go through the posts to refresh my memory on what has been discussed and have Professor pull things together to get the next run underway. If I can, I will glean from your posts what people think is the next logical step, from among the number of choices offered. It doesn't look like I'm up to preparing multiple runs at once.

Does this include spending on a long-term binding?

Good to see you are finally back!

Sure, why not.

Yeah, I was beginning to think I died or something.

Query, if I may: Is this game recruiting at all? ^_^

YES JOIN US COME TO THE DARK SIDE WE HAVE TERRIFYING ANTAGONISTS AND SOME ONLY SLIGHTLY LESS TERRIFYING PROTAGONISTS

O_O *backs away slowly....*

Hey all I'll be slow to post this week. I updated zo, raised infiltration. But that is all I am going to do for now.

Damn. The "New Seattle" sourcebook I am using gives addresses for some of the places in our current scenario, but Google Earth doesn't seem to put them where it makes sense to put them. I'm working on it. It would be good to have some kind of map that actually works.

Mr. GM sir?

Oh yeah!

OK by me. Take a look at the PC descriptions linked to in the first post of this OOC thread and see what kind of PC might fit and also strikes your fancy. I'm pretty open to just about anything. (Hey, a paranoid freak vampire with delusions of grandeur? No problem!)

By the footer text in your posts you are currently playing a street sam kind of person. I think we have that covered. See what else you can come up with. Submit the proposal and we'll talk.

I notice you're from Canada. Anywhere within a thousand kilometers of Toronto?

First Part> Ok!
Second Part> Sam, Infiltrator, sneaky sort, weapon specialist.. lots of options. I tend to avoid magic types. Sometimes play hackers.
Third Part> Nupe, Calgary. My parents live within that 1000km radius of TO though, does that count?

First Part> Ok!
Second Part> Sam, Infiltrator, sneaky sort, weapon specialist.. lots of options. I tend to avoid magic types. Sometimes play hackers.
Third Part> Nupe, Calgary. My parents live within that 1000km radius of TO though, does that count?

edit: heeeeeey.. even non-sams should wear armor and carry a pistol!

Correct me if I am wrong, but a hacker could be useful to the group? It looks like yall have a mage and 2 gun-types?

edit: sorry, that looks like an adept, not a mage?

Also, what are the chargen rules?

I used to live close to Calgary. Well, that other city to the north, actually.

There's a magician and an adept. Another non-Awakened could be a good idea. And yeah, a hacker would definitely be useful.

SR4A rules with modification as below.

The PCs were built with 400 BP, after which 50 karma were added. As they have already found out, the opposition is high level and nasty. There is a 100,000 nuyen signing bonus to join Professor's crew, but this comes after character creation (and would be role played during negotiations) and can't be used to buy stuff at the start. The rest of the team had a chance to spend money at the dissolution of our former employer's network, business, and, well, life. Opportunities to spend money tend to arise.

I'm a firm believer in making the GM's (my) life easier, so I would have matrix actions use similar mechanics to the rest of the game.

So, matrix skill tests are determined LOGIC + Skill, hits limited by Program level. As a bonus, the Logic Attribute actually means something to a high tech character.

Been working on a character all night here.. going to run a few things by you in case I have to make early changes..
1> SURGE character ok? Nothing super-crazy.. picture the marvel comics character Tigra basically! She has the 'day job' negative quality, specifically a pirate-ish "new news" blogger sort. I was thinking of adding in local fame, but decided to cut that..
2> hacker focused (spent a lot on headware and a good commlink!) but going to try and work in some FAce-ish skills, and of course be competent in combat. I do know what I want to spend that 100k bonus on (Encephalon 2 ) when the time comes.

on that note, off to bed.. company coming over in about 8 hours for an afternoon of board gaming <3

That should be good, face is another specialty this group is lacking in. I can't speak for pbangarth, but SURGE should be okay, considering that Void is also a changeling.

Changelings ... a vampire ... what the hell did Zo and Professor step into?

I'll get there soon. I had to start behind the power curve because of the racial cost. For now, my PC makes up for it and keeps himself isolated through near-exclusively astral support, where having a pistol doesn't matter. Heck, I've been wanting to get closer to face skills myself too, because his Influence, Physical Mask, and intimidation bonuses would work like a charm with other face skills, but I will need more Karma before I can seriously start doing that *hint to pbangarth *. Such is the life of an Awakened PC. *sigh*

This seems relevant. Also <insert obligatory reference to aliens here>.

Funny you should mention ....

Well, Zo stepped into a drekload of cred. An enemy he needs to keep away from his old chums, a crazy elf mage that is high on X-Files BTL, an orc that is just downright "wrong" when Zo gets close to him. Yeah, life is interesting for Zo. But when you go from ganger to adept, you expect some challenges.

Alright, the character sheet is mostly done. I'm still tweaking things here and there, trying to squeeze out a few more BP for contacts and such. I have not really delved into the background much, aside from a few talking points. I might just run with those in order to avoid holding up the game any

You're not holding up the game. I will have to bring you into play seamlessly, probably as the others work through some of the immediate challenges. I will need to see things like your contacts to help me do that.