Hi everyone - and welcome to another update for the Smuggler campaign. Episode 209 is now published, and can be found:-
Added to the end of Book 7:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vmngdr3q9tyxxu5/S...ok%207.pdf?dl=0The story at FanFiction:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13718688/1/Smu...Shadowrun-StoryThe story at Archive Of Our Own:
https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978617?..._full_work=trueThis brings book 7 to a close – 364 pages and 236,725 words – I hope you enjoyed them!
Here's the "behind the scenes" from this week's run:Well, it took a while to get here, but the big set piece I’ve had in mind for a while came to a peak on Tuesday, and certainly some of the players screamed as the roller-coaster dropped.
Off camera, the Horror had escaped from the temple, being dug out by a bunch of people working for Aztechnology who had caught wind of the dig site and managed to get in there before Ares could get another team in to finish the job. They tunnelled out the temple, and were promptly consumed/possessed by the Horror for their troubles – but provided a source of mojo and knowledge for it. Working from the temple site, it travelled down to the west, through Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey and headed to Constantinople, amassing bodies and power along the way, then crossing over into Europe and heading through Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovenia, across the top of Italy, into France and then down into Spain, using the port at Bilbao to commandeer a boat to get across to New York, before working its way with a rag-tag army of flunkies loaded across busses and trucks across the UCAS and into Sioux.
As a follow up, if the players (or rather Hunter) does any kind of matrix search, they’ll come across news reports following this path over the last month or so, with a rash of disappearances, stolen vehicles, missing people, security breaches etc – all of which will tie up with a “type” of civilian they saw in the battle, all people that were influenced/mind controlled or otherwise turned into a puppet, slave to the Horrors will. Hopefully this will explain things a little to them, and let them see what happened, and how they all came to be here… and if they explore the area physically, then they’ll find the mass of trucks and busses and other transports that they used for the last leg.
So – that got the Horror and a bunch of minions to the place – a power site of significance and the place where the first Ghost Dance was attempted and failed, way too early in the mana cycle. But, with Harlequin and some other Shadowrunners having defeated their attempt to bridge over the chasm between realms a few years earlier (and something I know at least half the player group know about as we either played or ran Harlequins Back), this was the next biggest spike point they had access to, and the next best place to try to build a bridge. On the anniversary of the massacre, the Horror was going to pull some major mojo and sacrifice all the minions, trying to open up a conduit to the Horror realm and let some more of his mates through.
And he would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky meddling kids.
At the end of the week prior to this, I had to bite my cheek and try to keep a poker face when they saw Ehran and were saying things like “at least it’s not harlequin” and “it could have been worse”, knowing what was to come. After the introduction to Ehran, I had Damian Knight arrive, which raised a few eyebrows, and then of course the personification of chaos himself turned up to show Kai how it was done, along with Frosty. I suspect that at least two of the players knew exactly who she was supposed to be OOC, but nobody figured it out in game, so she’s still a mystery woman (though was genuinely admired for giving Harlequin a dressing down).
I’d pre-written a whole bunch of dialogue to work through, which I generally don’t do. Partly this was to try and get something to show off the various parts of their characters, partly to make sure I covered off the plot points, partly to make it clear to the players that it was up to them to sort this shit out as Harlequin was in a sulk, and partly to make the writeup a lot easier to manage. Ali (Tads) commented that this felt a little “street theatre”, in that clearly the NPCs were going to do their thing, and the players had only a little they could do to affect the outcome. Events *were* responsive to their input, but they were essentially correct – Knight was going to jet off with his requests from Ehran, Harlequin and Frosty were going to refuse to take part and drive off, and Ehran would tell them where they needed to be and head off to round up some Shaman. They could however change how the NPCs reacted to them and formed an opinion of them, which will have repercussions down the line.
One of the other major things to do was to get the business card to the team and sow the knowledge of the “Genesis Vehicle”, which is going to be a big upgrade for Marius if and when they decide to head to Detroit to see Ares. I have planned “special doohickeys” for each of the characters to try and give the campaign a bit of a fantasy twist – Aswon has his Spear, Kai has the magical crystal from Yakut, and this will be his – assuming he follows up on it.
But, with the theatre out of the way, the players got to go and scout the scene, do some last minute practice in the armour, move the tilt-wing closer to the location needed and then get a last sleep before the big showdown. Having Maisie along let me tell them about the different tribal makeup of the Sioux nation, and identify some of the shaman, trying to portray the importance of what they were seeing, and the players correctly surmised that they needed to keep these people safe from harm while they did (as Marius and Hunter are fond of referring to it) ‘mythic shit’
The next trigger was the Horror unleashing his barrage of special effects – when I dropped the *effective* karma pool of the mundane characters to zero, and the magical characters lost access to their good karma. This certainly made them sit up and take notice as they realised that without their re-rolls or being able to buy successes, it was going to radically affect their game plan. I’m not sure if anyone realised directly – it certainly wasn’t mentioned – but the other effect which was the reason I did this action, was that it prevented their access to the “hand of god” rule, as a way of cheating death.
When the fight kicked off, the bad guys were at range, giving the players an advantage of firepower and precision, and rather than rolling dice I went with a purely narrative flow. There’s no way I was going to try and simulate a battle this big using the SR rules mechanics – I think we’d still have been working through the first combat round by now, and it essentially didn’t really matter. It was all set-dressing and background to the main event. So, it was done as purely descriptive reactions – as long as the players kept up their weight of fire, the hordes advance was slowed, but not entirely stopped. When they got distracted by something, the horde advanced faster, closing the distance and becoming more of a threat. When the cavalry arrived, they thought initially it was more “bad guys”, then were very confused when the forces split to go around them and engage the enemy – but they certainly didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. As the battle ebbed and flowed, with the cursed ghosts of the 7th cav from the original time period up through Vietnam era and through to Iraq wars era got stuck in, that let the players think for a moment, and for Marius to do some scouting, and see that “stuff was going on at the graveyard” – and to head up there.
We were getting late in the session now, and possibly I was hurrying things along a little too much – but I didn’t want to leave this hanging mid battle over Christmas, or stretch things out, or lose the feeling of pressure I’d been trying to craft all session, so some of the horror effects were pulled from the game, and I described how they made it up the slope to the graveyard. Shimazu was out front, which suited me perfectly, and when the Horror swapped from using his powers (requiring Tads to use her resistance meta-magic) to a massive soul-rip spell, it caught her flat footed, and without a chance to swap to shielding.
Excellent… <insert emperor_palpatine.gif>
I had Tom/Shimazu make a bodyguarding roll, which he managed to pass – getting a 12, so he at least had the choice rather than *having* to throw himself in the way (he has a character flaw – ‘Impulsive(Bodyguard)’ which he normally plays well, but was definitely going to be a thing here!) So I asked him – you’ve got a held action, you’re the only one with the reflexes to do it. Do you want to get in the way of the thing heading to Kai?
And he said yes, bless him. Plot train not derailed. Big whew.
So I described him taking the hit on the sword, blocking the energy, being all heroic and saving the boss. And then the power overwhelmed the sword, deactivating it, and the bolt hit him, dropping him like a sack of shit.
The horror gloats for a moment, then takes the stolen soul and exits stage left through an astral gateway, to return bigger and badder at a future point. Lights go up, special effects stop. Players surrounded by a mass of corpses and exhumed bodies, carnage everywhere, and a PC on the ground.
Biotech rolls. Dead. Astral check. Dead. Jez/Aswon queries me – “Dead dead?”. “Yeah, looks that way.” “Well, shit.” Players looking at their character sheets then back up at cameras, wondering what just happened.
And fade to black, end of season cliff-hanger shock twist. That’s a wrap folks. Thanks very much, see you all next year. Tom, please stay online so I can chat for a minute about your new character…
All the other players log off, and Ali leaves the room so I can chat with Tom, make sure he’s ok and talk to him about new character concepts and ideas, and to drop him some information about what’s just happened.
You see – there’s no way I’m just arbitrarily killing a character like that. Especially not after 5 years of play time. That’s just gash… really bad form. No real warning, no build-up of events to really sell the idea. It was heroic and all, but really not my style, and not what I was after.
Balanced against that, I’m very mindful of the cardinal rules of magic in Shadowrun. No resurrection. No time-travel. No teleportation. Three rules that should *never* be broken. You can skirt close – I’m surprised the players didn’t say anything about their journey to the surface near the oil rig back when they were flying around the ring of fire – but I had a method there, the pair of earth elementals had paired astral gateways offering a “shortcut” – it was linked by their force X 100m in range, and there were other limits – but it wasn’t strictly teleportation, it’s a trick / simulation.
So – no resurrection. So Shimazu can’t be bought back to life. As I was tucking Ali up in bed after the game, she was all sad and mournful. She’s a soppy old thing, and was quite upset that Tom had lost his character, and was wondering if it was her fault, that she hadn’t swapped to the right technique in time. There were tears. In a way that pleased me, as she really was feeling the emotion of the event. On the other hand, my wife is crying, as she has all of the guilt. So I had to spend a while distracting her, talking about other things, about how we’d chatted about new character concepts and he was looking forward to trying something new, until she settled. And then I could stop biting the inside of my cheek again.
I left her and took the dog for a walk as usual, and got a chance to review how things had gone, and what was going to happen next.
No resurrection – that’s a hard rule. Baked into the physics of the game world, and you shouldn’t mess with stuff like that.
Definitely.But what if he wasn’t dead. Just *nearly* dead. His soul ripped out and taken with the Horror, leaving his body to die. Like a mage who’s spent too long out of their body. In the midst of all that battlefield carnage, and the adrenaline of battle, it’d be easy to mistake dead and nearly dead for the same thing.
I know it would, because I made secret perception tests and biotech rolls of the players, and they didn’t get any successes… *grin*
So, Shimazu isn’t quite dead. He’s dying, and he’s got only minutes before his body gives up with no soul. But they have a small amount of time…
If only there was someone versed in exotic magical techniques nearby with a handy ritual group of shaman willing to pull off some crazy-shit blood magic ritual.
Funny that… 😊
And as usual, here are the notes from the game session, to compare / contrast with the narrative. Much longer than normal as I’d prepared the NPC chats, and it also includes some of the pictures I used for the various NPCs and their vehicles to try and help the players visualise things.1. Saturday 16/10/2060, Location: 43.04661, -102.37761, Time 09:00
2. Tads assenses Ehran, trying not to penetrate masking. 8 successes.
3. General introductions.
4. Hope you're comfortable, we can start soon, rather explain this only once. Soup.
5. Tads asks about stuff from tiltwing - no you're fine, on time in fact early. Gets soup for team, not for Marius.Can't get it to him.
6. Hunter chemical analysis on soup - natural
7. Kai - looking east - something. E - just waiting for someone.
8. Marius - detect wall of sensor coming in. Warns team.
9. When the team arrives, he starts to talk to them, to be distracted by an Ares TR55-X coming in to land on the highway, stopping near them. A full team of Ares Firewatch get out and set up a perimeter (2 X LMG on gyromount, 1 X Laser MP, one DMR in .75 cal anti-troll, one with paired F6 weapon foci swords, the G6 mage is in the cockpit with the rigger, with shielding up on DK), then he's joined by Damian Knight and his assistant Oliver Brown. Both are covered with spell defence and an astral haze from some kind of concealment spell (astral static). Marius vehicle check - the X is a stretched fuselage version, armoured with longer range, super-luxury, full EW suite. Vague tickle from overhead fighters loitering up at 30K altitude - flight of 3 Ares Penetrator XV's just tooling along at mach 0.6
10. A - you expecting high tech? E - wouldn't surprise me at all. Marius gets details of top cover, warns team.
11. Get details of jet coming in for a landing. Subtle Ares logos.
12. Firewatch team get out, perimeter, then Knight, spots shielding + astral static,
13. Tads assense - curious, impatient,
14. "It's a three hour flight from Detroit - this had better be important"
15. "It is, but thank you for coming."
16. "I very nearly didn't - I don't like getting involved with this mystic nonsense"
17. "But here you are. And of course, mystic nonsense can be SO enriching sometimes. It was only 60 seconds, old friend, but what a ride..." *sharp look from DK*
18. "So why am I here, and who are these people"
19. *** I am Aswon ***
20. "You're here because we need your help, or will do. And these people? I don't actually know... maybe now is a good time for introductions. But we'll keep it brief, as time is a precious commodity for all of us."
21. Kai - just lists names and "remote operator"
22. Radio chatter - contact, westbound, single vehicle. Old style petrol - a Volkswagon.
23. Ehran "Really? Oh, let it through. This should be...interesting."
24. DK "You heard him Oliver. Let it through. But run the plates."
25. *** Kai moves almost imperceptably towards DK for cover. Perception test. Firewatch team starts to aim at him. Aswon steps away from Kai.
26. F - out, nods, "coming?"
27. Harlequin (average height for an elf, being a head shorter in height than Ehran. His usual manner of dress is a long black or brown leather coat, with lots of buttons on the lapel. Underneath the coat, he wears blue jeans, a cotton t-shirt, along with anaconda-skin cowboy boots, His face is usually painted. Sometimes, it is a single diamond over one eye) and Frosty (tall and thin with long, snow-white hair that falls down her back. She is elven, although she is human-looking. She tends to dress for effect and has a weakness for one-of-a-kind items, including a platinum ring in the shape of a coiled dragon) get out of the stretch limo camper. H spots E and stops, planting hands on hips and adopting a defiant stance
28. H "No. No! NO! Absolutely not. I'm not doing it!"
29. F "All you have to do is talk to him. You're not afraid of him are you?"
30. H "Don't try to manipulate me, child. I'm still not doing it."
31. F "Fine - well I'LL go talk to him then and show him that at least one of us is an adult" Approaches. "Hello Ehran. Mr Knight." Gets nods from both of them. "Sorry about him. He's being a bit difficult at the moment."
32. H "I can hear you, you know? And I'm not being difficult. I FIXED that. Can it not just stay FIXED?"
33. E "Apparently not. The enemy moves, for some reason, sooner than we expected."
34. H "Well I'm not fixing it. I'm done. You hear me? Done! They don't understand, they don't care. Feeble little ants, scurrying around, never wondering about the consequences, never seeing the bigger picture. Small minded petty beings full of their own self importance and schemes."
35. F "Maybe because they don't understand the consequences, because some people never give them a straight answer and act all mysterious and holier than thou!"
36. H "Maybe because they're childish and don't understand the magnitude of what they're dealing with."
37. E "I feel you are correct in this."
38. H "And I don't need your support either!"
39. F "Will both of you stop bickering!!!"
40. ***tads mutters "should we have bought chairs and popcorn." Hunter goes for a chocolate bar. Kai asks Aswon "did we break it? No? Good."
41. DK "Indeed. I have no time for this. Or intention to put up with petty insults" Points finger at H "No matter how small minded and petty I am."
42. H "Well, neither do I. And you can't make me!"
43. F "You are SUCH a child sometimes." Proper anger in her voice, slaps H across the face, hard, leaving red marks on his cheek.
44. H "How DARE you!" Noticeable build up of power, feeling of doom. Presence increases, feeling of fell energy. Magic perception checks as his masking slips for just a moment. In astral, he's a weary man wearing blood splattered medieval armour, face covered in gore and mud, exhausted from battle, dragging a sword behind him. Firewatch team get very nervous, fanning out to encircle / pay attention to H. E rubs at his temple.
45. *** Kai to ehran ' you're gonna need more chicken soup ***
46. F "How dare you, stand by and do nothing. How dare you live in a bottle, sitting in your chair staring out of the window, day after day, watching the world go slowly to hell. How. Dare. You. Is this the training you promised me? Is this what I should aspire to? What I am to become?" H goes to speak, but F waves a finger under his nose, quivering with rage. "You disgust me... more than that, you... disappoint me. I'll be in the car." F flounces off, not looking back behind her. H turns to watch her go a little, then swivels round to face the rest. Rubbing at his cheek a little, there's a faint glimmer in the eye, a tiny smile at the corner of his mouth for the first time since they met him. As if someone has just stoked a fireplace, and found a tiny little ember, then blown on it.
47. H "Feisty. I like it. I'm still not helping though. Not this time. It's your turn, chal'han." H turns and strides off after F, returning to the VW and getting in, then turning it around and heading back west.
48. *** Tads - oi, guy with the makeup. Wat? Explains about the horror. Jolly good. Get on with it."
49. DK "What was that about?"
50. E "Old business, that should have been concluded. But apparently not. But now you understand the magnitude of what we're dealing with. So, I need to call in that marker."
51. DK "Marker? I don't have a marker, not with you." E raises an eyebrow, then pulls out an envelope from a pocket, opens it and pulls out a picture of some pyramids on a red background.
52. E "So, the research I have on exactly what these structures are, what they represent and how certain agencies discovered them just before they..."
53. DK "Oh, that marker. Sure. So what do you need?"
54. E "If what is going to happen here is what I expect, then this area is going to see an interesting twenty four hours - but you should not be involved in that, at all. But I believe that one of the people here could benefit greatly from some of your latest work. Particularly the work on the Genesis Vehicle." E points at Marius while DK splutters in shock, Oliver blanches white.
55. DK "How do you know about... never mind." Turns, to Oliver. "We need to evalute our personnel and security arrangements it seems. Give him a contact card though. If he survives whatever is going on here, he can head to Detroit sometime and give us a call."
56. *** oliver swaps buisiness cards with Kai***
57. E "And the other part of this is much more time sensitive. I would like you to call someone, and see if you can - persuade them to carry out something. The details are here." Passes over another sheet of paper. DK scans quickly then snorts.
58. DK "Don't want much do you? Well, that's going to make the news... but I'm sure we can negotiate on something. They're after some new LAVs anyway. I'm not promising, but I'll see what I can do. And the pictures?" Gestures towards E's hand. The pictures spontaneously combust, charring and dropping ash all over the road.
59. E "What pictures?"
60. DK "Ok. I'm on it. But now I have to get back." Gives Marius a hard stare, committing him to memory. "Call me sometime then. Ok, Captain, wheels up in 2. Oliver, get on the phone and call SecDef, tell him I need a few minutes of his time on a matter thats time critical, but that will enhance the security of the UCAS. I can talk on the plane if he can speak in the next two hours." Heading back to the plane, the firewatch team collapse around him and they board,
61. *** Kai shouts to oliver "discrete deliveries, anytime, give us a call" ***
62. engines spool up, then taxi turn and head east, taking off and quickly accelerating, climbing sharply
63. ***Hunter shouts "Detroit is the other way!"***
64. Ehran explains to be there to 10am tomorrow, for Marius to be there. Aswon - we're none the wiser. Well, you aren't. I'll see you tomorrow.
65. Tads gets some spell signature from Ehran - or at least one of his sigs.
66. Tads - who where they?
67. Aswon - explains DK, doesn't know about the others. Kai - H is a nightmare. Shimazu - old tired warrior to me. A girl has him pegged to rights. She seems cool. H - they're his personal bodyguard.
68. Kai - what was the genesis thing? Tads something to do with Marius. A - something for if we're in Detroit? But not relevant today. Tads - Marius probably won't know, from the reaction NOBODOY was supposed to know.
69. A - whoever the painted dude was, I don't know but it seems all scary. S - more powerful than anyone else I've ever seen.
70. Back to the tilt-wing, double and triple checks, try moving in the armour,
71. scout out the area, find spiney to the east to stash the tilt wing
72. Weather report for the next day - clear,dry, cold and windy.
73. Kai to Maisie "do you want to help save the world?" M - you're all getting ready for a war, don't know what is going on. Team discuss, agree to tell her, keep simple story. Aswon tells story - creature, powerful entity, other domain. Threatens everyting. All stuff your people have had enough of. It's had help. Something happening tomorrow, powerful people worried. All sorts of events, weather, etc. You could get out of here to some tribal council, warn people. Taking part might get you killed, but you might be able to help. Don't let it touch you." Kai - "so you're in and might die, or out and hope we don't fail". Tads assenses weapons - you can't hurt it. No - but I can hurt the people trying to stop you hurting it.
74. Welcome aboard.
75. The following morning, team due into area at 10:00. If they go before it's run down, quiet, reverential, making handicrafts from different families, impoverished, shared cred-reader, nothing much moving or happening in the area to see. Deserted compared to yesterday. Ask Maisie - day of the massace, at home making offerings. Tads puts resistance up.
76. Kai asks about spirits - if they answer your call, they are here to help you.
77. Nothing happens until they get within a few hundred metres of the memorial. When they do, 18 shaman appear over the ridge, walking down the road, each accompanied by a young brave. Maisie will identify the tribes if required -
78. 3 X Sioux, 2 X Crow, 2 X Navaho, 2 X Hidatsa, 2 X Arapaho, 1 X Cree, 1 X Plains Chippewa, 1 X Blackfoot, 1 X Apache, 1 X Cheyenne, 1 X Mohawk, 1 X shamen representing the other tribes
79. Aswon "They doing another ghost dance?"
80. Ehran arrives with tribal shaman, go to the monument. ehran is using facial sculpt, now looks like Walther Bright Water. Tads and Aswon recognises, Shimazu a bit.
81. Maisie recognises a number of them:
82. "Wind Biter, Snow Soother, Sun Dancer, Plains Walker" - the others look of a similar age/respect level, indicating they are the elder shaman of their respective tribes.
83. Tads - possibly change of job Maisie - maybe look after your elders.
84. catch Ehran being referred to as "Mountain Thunder". Are they the outsiders? Yes
85. Move down to the memorial, won't engage verbally with the players, sit and start to meditate, smoke and wait. Tads sniff - magical enhancements, but not exactly the same as the wolf tribe.
86. Aswon - ALL of the SUT roll, does exceptionally well. analyses probable battlefield location and flow.
87. Entering the area, sudden darkening of the skies, swirling up creating a malestrom high above them. Occassional flashes of lightning but with no thunder. Sky changes - sickly green vortex in the astral, stretching up to a portal, putrescent green. In real world hurricane swirls, a "maelstrom sky" forming over the graveyard.
88. Magic background starts to build up, rising and falling creating mana ebbs and shallows. Rises up again, then there is a bolt of lightning that hits the burial ground, magic background check on 4s, or wp test on 8s for the mundanes - to feel "different". Mundanes have KP=0, Magical have GK=0
89. Maisie will take weapons and guard the shaman, frightened, doesn't know what's going on.
90. An army of possessed metahumans rise up out of the defiles and lowlands. Wearing uniforms and different clothes, bus tour guides, border officials, guards - whatever got in it's way on the journey over from Turkmenistan. Sends in waves of possessed to target the players. All mostly R3 humans, occasional tougher orcs or trolls, no magic, no tactics - waves of human bodies. Have weak regen (fails on 1-2) 200-300 at least
91. Tads goes for stunball, trying low force, uncertain what the power site will do. F3, cast at S,
- proper shambling army of unstoppable zombies. Horror floating around out of sight at the back, directing, watching through his possessed minions.
92. Team don't want to kill them, but feel they have to - open fire, grenades and AoE, send spirits in to confuse any that get near the shaman. Wind blowing towards the team and left a bit.
93. Horror powers are mostly used in directing his army and the karma effect, at least to start with. Growing sense of palpable dread (rising fear tests on 2s, then 3s, then 4s etc, countered by Tad's resistance (max 6) which should keep them safe.
94. Shielding was up - WP2 Fear test
95. Team open fire, concussion grenades, aimed fire. Ask spirit to take cannister - it refuses.
96. Aswon offers to run in and throw cannister. Check targets - realise they all have some kind of weapon - scratch that.
97. Team spots regen kicking in.
98. Team hears noises behind them, some hearing hoofbeats. Break into a canter, Aswon swops side, hear ghost horn. SUT rolls, spot the split, Aswon patrols the circle. Tads falls back too. Marius keeps firing, Hunter tries to avoid the cav. Fear checks, resistance up, Marius sends condor up. Spots the skellies being exhumed, hurricane winds + the horror. Indirect fire from GLs.
99. Hunter fails WP check - goes to eat a barrel, Kai stops with commanding voice. Tads MB check, resistance is working.
100. Team head up to the graveyard.
101. Head up, laying down heavy fire.
102. As players are being forced back, starting to be surrounded by advancing horde, 10:26 am, 7th cav arrive - sabres and horses first, then M113 APCs from vietnam era
103. The Horror pulls out the stops, starting to use its powers more and putting real effort in - zombies bursting into flames and running forward, exploding as living bombs, the 7th cav M1 Abrams and AH64 Apaches join then, swinging the fighting back to a neutral balance.
104. An 'elite' squad of about 30 aims for the players, launching direct assaults with AK style rifles and shotguns, and with glowing,dripping, green melee weapons, mix of swords, spears and claws.
105. The horror starts to use his "creeping dread" power, Essence check vs 12s (minus any resistance), with the players needing 10 successes to completely counter the effect - otherwise with every "net" hit from the Horror, the players get -1 init and -1 combat pool.
106. As they fight - then go for the horror launching a doom bolt at Kai. Shimazu WP12 test to avoid his bodyguard training taking over, take the bolt on the chest as he pushes Kai away, and fall to the ground, apparently dead. Sight of his soul / astral form being sucked out, into the swirling maelstrom and through the portal. Horror follows and all effects cancel, zombie army drop, life force consumed. Hundreds of corpses, deadly stillness.
107. Get to Shimazu, check for signs of life. Biotech / assense. Both assess as dead.
108. Kai - shouts at Ehran "Help!Now!"
109. Images to share with players for NPCs and vehicles
110.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/shadowrun...;path-prefix=en111.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594...e2Kv6QTqkrccpDw112.
https://www.c-suiteinstitute.com/wp-content...led-350x200.jpg113.
https://www.vwcamperhire.com/blog/wp-conten...Camper-Limo.jpg114.
https://cf.girlsaskguys.com/q3369642/6b88d8...02a164d30-m.jpg115.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/shadowrun...;path-prefix=en