Okay, through various means the Seattle Vory in our game are being hit staggeringly hard and despite their best efforts they have not yet got a solid idea of who's responsible for mucking with their operations, mainly because they're working through a string of proxies and being very careful about not getting caught.

I figure that various organizations are going to start trying to use the situation to their advantage, usually by framing a target then hoping the Vory will come down on them like a hammer. Remember, these don't have to work to make things interesting...

Here are some of the ideas I've been toying with so far:

Triads frame Yaks (with extra fun if the Yaks work it out).
Knight Errant frames Ancients (planning to swoop in and arrest whoever's still standing at the end of the fight).
Neonet frames Petrovski Security (Who are owned by Mitsuhama, the plan being to shake up the local branch and steal some market share in the confusion)
and that's just the start...

Meanwhile several organizations are courting the aggressor for their allegiance, Knight Errant is trying to get this whole thing over with as quickly and cleanly as possible to make a good impression with their new contract, Ares Arms is trying to string it out for as long as possible to maximize sales of home defense weapons to frightened civilians, Renraku is trying to escalate things then clean up on rebuilding projects (Architectural Dynamics subsidiary), Lone Star is trying to make the violence spread to make KE look bad and draw Vory into their few remaining areas to arrest them and boost their own profile.

any more ideas.

Don't forget the Vory themselves. The Red Vory in Russia may send extra help to get to the bottom of what's going on (although that may be a big blow to your Seattle Vory leader directly), or the Western (European) Vory may try to subvert or supplant the weakened Seattle Vory with an organization loyal to their own. Finally, the Seattle Vory aren't dumb - they may cut loose certain operations and perceived "weaker" links, temporarily giving up turf to regroup and get a better handle on what's going on, laying low to reduce their exposure, spread misinformation, and (most especially) start laying traps to try and mess up whoever is messing with them.

Tons could go with that.

-Seopula rings > framing mafia families > framing yakuza
-MCT gets involved because of Yakuza and starts helping supply gangs to go after other syndicates. In response NeoNet and Ares (through KE) are after MCT
-A level and national corps see opening and start trying to buy up exceedingly cheap real estate as violence drops price.
-All the while te Vory do their usual thing and commit wxcessive violence on any threats.

And every one of those options will need shadowrunners, lots and lots of work for your players.

And if that's not enough, add more syndicates and gangs and have it a full out turf war, more corps get involved for the business end (weapons, medical treatment, security, cheap real estate, prototype testing), bugs (they love chaos to thrive in), human nation (violence is in say, Puyallup, with high metahuman and sinless human, so cleaning the world for them) or add all them together and let your players devise their own tin foil hats after tryin to work out what the hell is happening.


Also another LS angle; gangs and syndacoyes are being armed through confiscated weapons from when LS was running the show. They try to blame it on KE and make them look bad for letting weapons that LS had taken off the street back into he streets.

Honestly, we're not really expecting much of Seattle to be left standing after the smoke clears on this one...

Letting blow off some steam huh fuel?

I'd want Knight Errant to come out swinging. Jackboots, Citymasters and Helo's go a long way to curbing aspirations of the gangers and syndicates. I could also see Lone-Star put out a job for an assault on a K-E convoy. Fucking A, that would be trouble. You'd have HTR Squads patrolling the streets, runners gunning it through the city for the safety of the barrens, all the while dodging through the unholy hell of the Yaks, Traids and Vory are slaughtering each other.

Here's a conspiracy.

Those plastic pieces on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their real purpose is sinister.


Sorry, had to get that out of my system. But seriously though, someone mentioned earlier

That is the one I think should be happening, but flesh it out a bit. Maybe the head of that corp grew up in that area, and s/he's trying to gentrify it? Maybe a high level exec secretly has ties to the Yaks or Triad, and has been putting things in motion for his allies to gain a large swath of territory when the dust settles.


Or, you know, Aglets.

Aglets are anything but sinister! I should know, I invented them...

How badly are the Vory hurt ? If it looks like they're on the way to getting wiped, it's likely the other syndicates are going to wonder if whoever is behind the attack will stop there. Which means you will likely have teh various faction poking around to figure who's behind, and if it looks menacing enough have an emerging 'cirminal alliance' as they dicde to put their grudges and turf battles on hold until whoever's behind the attacks is identified and dealt with. Depending on the how and when, such an alliance may even inclues the Vory.

A rogue AI who the Vory attempted to coerce into working for them is behind it, using multiple shells to hide behind and pinning other corps and syndacites. It's avenue of attacks? Highly advanced stealth RFIDs in the aglets of the Vory members shoes.

Traces them and cause lethal accidents that it starts to pin on other factions, events snowball and now all aglets with RFIDs in them are being used to kill.

Ridiculous, yes. Possibly amazing, yes. Leaves runners living with tinfoil hats in paranoia, yes.

Nemesis: Grrl Scouts.


Increasing Vory presence has been causing greater conflict with the Grrl Scout's, though the Vory probably don't even notice them or if they did would dismiss them as children.

Cheap Vory Prostitutes are especially a sore spot.

Originally bringing cheap talent over from the Russian territories, they have taken to sweeping new girls up from z-zones and other slums, an area the Grrl Scouts especially try to recruit for themselves to help underprivileged females.

The increased drug/chip trade (including using said prostitutes for BTL sims) is also making for an increasingly unhealthy environment for the GS to operate in as well as cutting into Cookie sales....

Chipheads just don't get the munchies the same way and rarely have much cash left for cookies in anycase.

Realizing they can not go toe to toe directly with the Vory, they have taken to hitting from the sidelines.

From daughters of mid to high level execs hacking mommy and daddy's system to reroute supplies and weapons while girls closer to the street discreetly hire muscle/runners via their various proxies. Working those Masking, Tactician & Hacking Badges....

You might even see some second/third generation born of the shadows, daughters of notable runners taking up in the family business...

The beauty of it is, is that this network has fingers in several organizations (granted indirectly) so initial backtracking will take any searchers through a number of different seemingly unrelated groups.

Should the Vory actually find them though it would be quite bloody as they have no compunction from raining destruction on their families...

I actually LOL'd at this. Consider that idea stolen and getting used in some way in an active campaign.

Haha glad you enjoyed it, and hope your group does too!

And to be honest, I think I ruined most of my last group when I GM'd before stepping down. Things like investigating the poisoning of Gov. brackhaven for it to be merely a mislabeled flavor of coffee (deathly allergic to cocunut) ad a complete accident, complete with a satellite crashing into a friends car and people following them (critical glitched perception rest). Or the whole area fiasco starting merely by the project lead's word document's paper clip guy activating autocorrect, resulting in the Excalibur situation. By the 7th run most of the players were looking for what actually happened so I started making runs straightforward, which really scared them because they thought they were really screwed and couldn't figure out all the angles. Had a team of Plan 9s and it was glorious (and the rigger had a tinfoil hat on his combat helmet. Just incase, cause knocking on everything and hittin te light switch 3 times can only keep you safe for so long )

the plot for the movie alien, in the stratosphere

Be pretty funny to see some Grrl Scouts suddenly whip out some hi-cap PDWs from some cookie boxes and get to chopping down some Vory a la Gunslinger Girls. Imagine the Vory BOLO, "The enemy are female, between three and four feet tall, wearing green berets , white shirts, green chest bands with patches, and checkered green skirts, and will have cookie boxes nearby. Shoot on sight!" Toss in a few psychotic soccer moms with AR/GL combos and you have pure gold...

Is there an italy sourcebook, cause I could go for some govt sanctioned wetwork. God the Fratello's would be the best fixers ever. Failed to kill all the hostiles? She needs conditioning and some new cyber.

Shadows of Europe has a section on Italy and the major players there.

Nel "Momma" Martinelli, aka The Soccer Mom.

Role: Transporter

Female, 5' 11", Blue eyes and dirty blonde hair.

Generally unremarkable; the best anybody who knew her could describe her as is "an Elf-version of June Cleaver" or "a soccer mom misplaced in time." She'd be perfectly in place in a 1960's sitcom, or socializing elbow-to-elbow with any middle-class matron.

Background:

Nobody's quite sure what's wrong with her, except that it was tragic. She behaves as if just about everybody around her is her child, or a child of the neighborhood, with the exception of cops (who she always seems to have a toasty muffin, real coffee, and kind words for). The mob has taken to looking after her in the shadows, while the cops do a fair job in the light. The few times people have tried to remove her trauma have been... painful. Despite her mysterious trauma and symptoms, she's quite the asset to "her kids." Her driving skills are at least above average, her enthusiasm cannot be beat, and who can turn down those WONDERFUL cookies and real milk on the way back from a run?

Note: She killed her real kids ages ago in the middle of a psychotic breakdown. It's never been treated, and nobody knows this fact. Hopefully, "her kids" don't push her too far and have to deal with the fallout.