So my PC's are about to take on 4 Toxic Shamans courtesy of the Redneck adventures.

I figured if they are smart enough - or if I give them a hint; they might just hand one or all of them to the Draco foundation for mega muulah!

Two of the PC are SINners so at least they are on the grid in some shape or form.

Other than the problem of keeping the shaman sedated and getting said body across the border from the NAN back to Seattle (its more of a Redskin adventure); what would you recommend the concequences of getting paid Xmillion nuyen?

My thoughts are simply that the characters receiving the dosh would be flagged if not just by the Draco foundation but by others on a watch list of some sort.

But also, what questions do you think the Draco foundation would ask other than the obvious "Where did you find him, what was he up to and why were you there to stop him" kind questions?

Would there be any factors that you could think to reduce the award (no bounty hunter licence or some such (though I don't think the Draco foundation actually requires this)).

why would they be added on a watch list for getting a million nuyen?

i mean, i know it sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of things, it really isn't in the shadowrun setting any more than a million dollars is really all that much in the real world. one million nuyen is probably enough to own a stuffer shack franchise (assuming they use the franchise model), maybe not even (a mcdonald's franchise today, for example, requires that you have 750,000 dollars on hand, not borrowed, to own, plus franchise fees).

do the owners of various small businesses in your setting get put on a watch list for being so wealthy?

If I remember correctly, the Draco Foundation has a hitlist out for that bounty, so if those shaman are not on the Foundation's radar then there is no payout. If the shaman are on the radar then a group of shadowrunners are probably not going to be able to take four of them together.

A hitlist eh? Excellent... That gives it some control. I thought it way any ol toxic/blood shaman they would pay out on. A list makes much more sense!

Not sure how they could generate such a list, honestly.
If they knew who the toxics and bugs were, they would just hire out to acquire them. The point was that the Draco Foundation would pay for ANY living example of Toxic or Bug Shaman. Not like there is a registry or anything.

....

umm... that's how it works.

they find out about a toxic or bug shaman. and then they put them on the list, which is functionally like hiring everyone who's interested without having to pay them except for the one person (or group) that actually manages to succeed.

so yes, if they know who the toxics and bugs are, they do in fact just hire out to acquire them.

If they know, I can agree with that. But I am sure that not all Toxic or Bug shaman make the list - In fact I would be surprised if more than a small fraction actually make the list.

If they've got persuasive evidence that the targets are toxics, then I'd say let them do it. Offer the payment in access to info, gear, and contacts rather than cash up front if they like, and you've got a whole load of available story hooks you can drop on them. Just make sure they're aware of the need for proof up front, then if they can't provide it they sure aren't going to make any friends with the Dracos.

After all, I'm sure they've had any number of crazy runners turn up with corpses they claimed were bug shaman, toxics, or blood mages and no proof.

The reward is for living ones, no?

And if the Foundation knew of one or more, why wouldn't they just send their crack teams to collect them?

Outsource the risk? OK, maybe. But a million Nuyen buys a lot of rehabilitation and recruitment.

Yes... The reward is for LIVING Shaman of Toxic and Bug Traditions.

i'm sure you're right about the fact that most are not on the list. the will places the bounty. the draco foundation is in charge of fulfilling that. not the person that brings in someone they claim is a toxic or bug shaman. i suppose you *could* bring one in, but without some means of proving they're a toxic or bug shaman, good luck getting your money.

of course, if you can prove that someone is a toxic or bug shaman, you can probably then get them added to the list. not necessarily in the time frame you'd like it to happen, though.



ok, so you send your crack team to collect them. they have now fulfilled the conditions required to receive their 1 million nuyen. congratulations, in addition to paying for the bounty, now you have to pay for all their employee benefits.

no really, think about it. basically, unless you've been living under a rock, you know exactly how much the job is valued at. where are you finding the unemployed but highly-employable people with an extremely rare skill set that will work for less than the amount that basically anyone who's ever heard of your organization knows your organization values performing the job at? the draco foundation has literally set the amount which you get paid for doing the job. who's going to agree to do it for less on a regular basis?

I'd say that the SINner runners are going to have issues if they try to evade paying Taxes/IRS.

Isn't it blood shamans, and not bug, that DF pays on? Ares might pay on a bug shaman, though.

Because Plot Hook.

sure, but it's not going to get them put on a "watch list". it's going to get them put on a "pay your taxes" list, of course, but once you've paid your taxes they don't really care any more.

Well, I meant that if DF knew where some toxics were, they could send their crack team instead of making a million nuyen bounty. And I know the bounty came out in Dunky's will, but he would not have put it there if his Foundation didn't need to crowdsource the search for toxics.

As far as Plot Hook, OK, but again, the Plot Hook would be best served by the absence of a list.

Ta da!

That's what we've got. Not bugs, not toxics, not corpses. Alive-and-delivered blood mages, or verifiable information leading towards blood mages.

As for a "watch list," I can only say...why? If by "watch list" you mean "Now you're in the DF's rolodex and they might offer you a job since you've proven yourself useful," fine, but if you mean it in the standard "you're in the shit now" sort of way, that seems...unnecessary.

From The Annotated Dunkelzahn's Will:

*sigh* ok, let's try another approach to explain why this won't work.

suppose bill gates announced that he was willing to pay a million dollars to anyone who can come up with a microsoft commercial that he approves of.

subsequently, microsoft calls up your marketing company and says "hey, we'd like you to make a microsoft commercial that bill gates would approve of, but we're only willing to pay you less than the amount bill gates very publicly announced that he would pay for the exact same thing we're asking you to do".

so, who's gonna take that offer again? the "fair market value" of the service you are describing has been clearly defined. it's an open offer with no expiry date, and you yourself made it. what kind of idiot does it take to accept lower pay than what you have publicly announced is available when they are still taking the same risks? and, if they're that stupid, do you really want to put them to work hunting down powerful magicians who are most likely very resourceful, insane, vengeful, and lacking in morals? do you want them making decisions that you are going to be legally responsible for?

now, if their actions are not directly associated with you, then it likely won't come back to bite you nearly as often; if bob the bounty hunter attacks a blood shaman, he's not doing it while wearing DF insignia or carrying DF credentials. what's more, if you're not employing them, you don't have to worry about paying for damage caused when they get into a firefight with the mage and cause major structural damage to a building or kill dozens of civilians, or paying health insurance so that when they get crippled for life you're stuck paying the medical bills, or paying the medical bills while someone is in a coma and not providing any value, etc. you also don't ever have to pay for failure; if someone tries and fails to capture the target, you owe them nothing if they're an external asset. this is especially important because not only are all of those extremely bad results possible on a failed operation, i would go so far as to say that they're more likely to happen on a failed operation.

this is the kind of job that you really want to use external assets for, rather than your own. there's a huge chance of it going horribly wrong, and you don't want to be legally connected to it, or financially responsible for it, and you don't want to be the target for revenge.

D'oh! Mea culpa. Should've kept flipping instead of typing.

Jaid is right.
The bounty's out there, Dunkelzahn put it out there, and there's no retracting it.
If the Draco Foundation could retract the bounty, then mybe, just maybe, their own hit squad could do it for less. But theY'll know they've been somewhat stood up, and there are also the other considerations Jaid pointed out: Toxic Shamans tend to not go quietly! Capturing one alive is going to yield way more problems as you can't resort to overkill/excessive force/extreme violence*.

They can, as mages, also implement a few nasty tricks just in case they get captured alive so they in fact don't. Your call.
I'd let the players go with the money, though, if it doesn't screw up game balance too much.

*and that's just you. The Toxic Shaman will probably gladly break out everything. Some of them aren't exactly putting self-preservation ahead odf their other goals. Watch out for those who do.

*sigh*

What I was saying is that the Will and the Foundation are not totally separate entities, both having been generated by Dunkelzahn, and the Will would not have had to make a public search mechanism if the Foundation already knew where some of them were.

Except that the Will never included a Most Wanted List, to my knowledge. If there was a list, they would likely have been named, just as every named individual in the Will was singled out and identified.

I figured the List was a construct of the Foundation, in order to properly execute the Will and not have everything turn into a Salem witch hunt. The Foundation verified accounts of blood/toxic magic, and confirmed independently (through evidence or Metaplanar quests) that some Names are in fact blood/toxic, then put those on the List. At no time did the Foundation need to know the whereabouts of people on the List. It's literally a Most-Wanted List.

Why does the FBI have a Most Wanted List? For the exact same reason that the Foundation does.

The quote I found (above) from Portfolio of a Dragon would seem to support your version of the list, Neraph.

Which then leads one to think that crowd-sourcing may be the cheapest way to go.

OK.

And the Foundation seems to have a better portfolio - you know, more money to throw at questionable people like Shadowrunners and also less of a reluctance to use these people.

And plus on the verification that said person tied up and drugged is a toxic. Just a simple astral perception verifies it.

As an aside, just before our home game collapsed, our team discovered a cell of four of those guys. Ah, the visions we were having of how to spend that money!

Of course, there was the minor detail of actually earning the money first.

Well, assuming said Toxic isn't smart enough to have better masking than you.

If you're strong enough, call up a spirit and ask it to report an assensing test for you. A spirit's dice pool for assensing is twice its force, and at Force 6 is quite likely to exceed that of most characters. Get it higher and you could exceed said toxic shaman's Magic + Intuition + Initiation Grade in the opposed test, and if it's your Detection spirit it might be nice enough to add a point of Edge to help you out. Hell, it just might anyway if it means locking away a polluter of the manasphere.

not to mention, we know that the head of the DF is an immortal elf... while i doubt there's any immortal elf underlings, i'm gonna go out on a limb here and speculate that if the head of the organization is an immortal elf, the underlings aren't exactly chumps. still, even if they were accepting toxic shamans (which apparently they are not), proving they're toxic is only one of many steps...

also, i doubt the DF wants to encourage kidnapping people and trying to turn them in for the bounty. seriously, a list of confirmed targets makes a lot more sense (that said, afaict from the excerpt of the will quoted earlier, it looks like you can also get a reward for adding people to their list of confirmed blood mages, if you provide proof, whether you capture one or not, so if you have found a blood mage that is not on the list but you can prove that they are a blood mage in advance, you could potentially collect twice).

... Can't you do a Teamwork Test on it? Basically you and the spirit verbally discussing what you're seeing in the aura?

Or, heaven forbid, a Leadership Test to have your Magician perform better?

Only if the Leadership test takes the form of getting Nadja to wear that cheerleader outfit complete with pom poms (you know the one) while the mage does his check.

Would it really help the checking mage? maybe, maybe not.

But may increase the number of 'toxics' wanted to get 'checked'.

We all love Nadja's Cheerleader Outfit.
Though I far prefer her in the classic "Princess Leia" outfit from that old flat-vid. She wore it last time she stopped by the Tower, and I've just got to say...

Another question: Would the person or people handing over said Toxic/Blood shaman need to have a SIN?

I'm thinking that if they did not have a SIN, they would not hand over the bounty over until they did - and being the Draco foundation (with its authority to create real SINs), they could be offered a real SIN for - I dunno 100k each?

Once that was arranged (it would have to be done there and then - no questions asked), they balance would go to their new SIN (or split between multiple parties if required).

I'd say it's up to you to decide.

But there are still a few things to take into account. The DF is a public charity, not an extraterritorial company. It has to comply to UCAS law, and audits.

I'm not sure if it would be lawful for an organization like the Draco Foundation to offer a bounty for the capture of people. I don't think the DF has the right to detain SINners against their will, no matter if they're toxic/blood shamans. If the shaman is a SINless, it's less of a problem, it might still be technically illegal, but nobody will care.

Still, the DF might prefer the person handling over the shaman to have a SIN, because a financial audit might raise an eyebrow or two if they discover that a few millions were used to buy certified credsticks for unknown purposes. And I don't think they can issue real SIN.

That could actually be a way for the DF to avoid paying the PC, if you want to take that route. "Sorry, but we can only offer rewards to SINners.", and have them check and refuse fake SINs. They can then negociate a far lower price with the PCs.

But if you want the PCs to be paid in full, it's possible (and likely) that the DF has a system to fund black ops and illegal transactions, and can use it to pay the runners the promised reward. As I wrote, it's up to you.

I handled it where they did have to have a SIN to get the reward. This caused a couple people to have to drop large volumes of cash on high rating SINs right before turning in the bounty. The bounty was actually collected at a third-party location, where a vehicle came alongside their vehicle and opened up, showing a PR-6 or PR-7 HTR team. Between the anxiety of their SINs not passing the checks and the fact that there was an HTR team pointing heavy weapons at them my players nearly opened fire. They were able to keep their cool and they made off with the collective 1 million, split like five ways.

Also, it's not too difficult to "persuade" the Toxic shaman to stop being a wanker with their masking if your team has the stomach for it. A couple of pipe-hitters with pliers and a blowtorch will usually do the trick.

Remember Al Capone? Stepping out of the shadows to claim a huge reward is going to get a lot of attention, and the Treasury Dept. and the IRS might start prying into your background.


I consider Lars. j. Matthews to be on a hit list.

Back to the subject at hand. if the team is clever enough to get a live toxic shaman to the Draco Foundation, they deserve to be rewarded. The Draco Foundation has a reputation for playing it straight, so you shouldn't try and have them screw over the players. There's still lots of ways to make life complicated after they turn in the shaman, like the IRS scrutiny I mentioned earlier. When you consider how much it'll cost to capture, transport, and turn over the shaman, plus incidentals like ammo, damaged equipment, and medical bills, splitting a million between the team really isn't that much.

There's also "Petty Cash" and certified Ebony Credsticks

Just like the AAA's and other 'corporations,' I'm sure the DF also does regular business with the shadowy types. Really seems to be more of how much of a hassle does the GM want turning over the bounty to be.

And IIRC there's a reference somewhere where the DF only has its doors open on the second Wednesday of the month, though that I could be wrong.

Correct but its only the 3rd of every month. For my players its the 7th so either they hold onto thier captive for a whole month or try to locate someone with contacts to the DF. Shouldnt be too hard, they have a lot of board members. One or two maybe in Seattle, its just a mater of finding them. With one of my players being a free spirit im sure they give an audience.

Well, of course the Draco Foundation could work that way. However, the OP wanted complications, and said that some of the team had real SINs. Plus the fact that t he Draco Foundation has a lot of government ties, so if they paid the bounty, the UCAS government would probably know. Probably not care too much, but they'd know.

So, if he wanted to add a few twists: first, unless the team kept things absolutely secret, there's a chance that some other team might have heard about them capturing a toxic shaman, and try to steal their payoff. Once they do get paid, he can say they paid legitimately, and therefore they have to worry about the IRS. If they're into realism, he can make them lose money on tax dodges and offshore accounts-- this works if the GM feels like a million is too much, and can bleed off some of the excess that way.

Personally? I don't think it'll be necessary, in SR5 a million split among a team really won't go that far. You might be able to get some nifty toys, which is really good for the mundanes, but it's not "frag you money": the amount required to tell everyone "frag you" and retire in luxury.


Um, no. It's basically the size of a megacorp,. and no mega would only do business once a month.

There was a reference in the will that something or other would only happen once, on a Wednesday. I'd have to look it up. That's for a bequest, though: regular business would go on as usual.

Edit again: I took a quick peek, there's a special bequest that if someone has a particular SIN, they can show up on any Wednesday between a certain time, and get a wish. I don't know if it was ever claimed, and they only had a year to do it in.
Edit: forgot about the list. The Draco Foundation list is just a rumor, and there's no official statement one way or another; that addition was written by a fan. That said, the foundation might maintain a list of known toxics, and shares it with others. Still, it wouldn't be an exclusive hit list. Someone mentioned the FBI 10 most wanted list; while it could work like that, that doesn't mean there aren't others the FBI wants; if you turn in someone not on the top 10 list, they'll still accept them.

So, if there is a list, and if you capture a toxic that isn't on the list, the Foundation will still take him and pay you the reward. They might need to take some extra time to verify you brought them a toxic, but that's no big deal.

Which department would deal with it do you the think?

The Foundation is only open to the public on the third of every month. Having to only pay stuff on that day means they can have the money invested away the rest of the time, which could explain why even with contacts in the DF, they won't be able to get the funds before the third of next month. Unless the players are naive, I doubt they'll agree to give them the shaman before they get the money.

Dept of (Toxic)Waste Management?

Heh heh, that sounds good.

Thinking about it, whilst they may only do open-door business on the 3rd of the month, it stands to reason that they will still have an active matrix presence where Joe public could visit. There would still be a public face as well. Whilst the first contact would most likely be an agent; it would be intelligent enough to be able to discern the players query and direct them to the correct department.

Duplicate

I'd just give the players the money, but I think that a million for each of the four toxics would be excessive. If that kind of cash would disrupt your game, just ensure toxics die before the players get chance to collect.

Or just make something up, like they no longer pay on toxics or blood magicians because of a remote magic school that trained awakened youths in those arts just to backstab them at a later date and turn them over to the DF for multiple bounties.

Where is everyone getting this? There is no mention of this in the will. or in Dot6W.

There's only one reference to a Wednesday, and it's for a specific bequest which can only be claimed on a Wednesday.