This weeks session now up and posted at this location

So, fairly simple this week - I wanted to spring "Sergei" on the team as a problem to be solved by diplomacy rather than gunplay, and otherwise keep things simple, and see if I could get them back to one of the base locations and start to set up, and offload Nadia.

The notes from the session, to compare against the narrative:

• Georgi calls for backup vehicle
• Tads gets details of the sustaining foci, hands over the 40k remaining cash
• Headlights coming
• Aswon and Hunter move off to the side, reload and vanish
• 2nd van arrives, pulls up next to georgis, goons start to move boxes to the new van.
• Hunter spots hovercraft coming , warns team. Tads heads out astrally, Marius sends drones back over
• Spot the driver and a guy with a hook and a rope, tads appears and asks for what they’re doing, they say rescue their friend, tads tells team, Kai says hold fire, Marius stays on station and observes
• Tads F4 lake spirit, help them rescue, don’t cause harm, she tells them she sent some help. Marius spots them lashing on and starting the tow of the medium.
• Kai asks georgi – kill them or not. Georgi I don’t want them following my golem. Just say the word, – It’s a deep lake , kill em – Marius ganks them
• Tads and Aswon check the far shore – empty (both roll badly)
• Kai asks Marius to go get a drone up with better sensors – spools up the electric drone
• Another set of headlights, georgi is that your vehicle, no, tads, go look
• She gets to the van, spots 2 X 4 goons in the back assenses, “they’re expecting a fight”
• Tads, F4 mountain spirit, accident on the truck, loose rock, makes handling check
• Aswon onto the roof, Hunter in the hatch, everyone else in the truck, pulls out of the car park before the drones land
• 2nd truck follows, flashes lights at them, tads goes to appear in the cab, just makes the merge test,
• “Get out “ who are you, we are here for georgi, who are you, sergei, password? There is no password”
• Georgie and sergei chat about the ambush, being late, get the goons out, S wants paying.
• Shimazu – psychology on georgi –drunk and belligerent
• My men must eat! Hunter – hey boss, let’s get the oats. Much sniggering
• Tads checks out on the lake – all dead. Comes back, influence to go away on sergei – failed.
• Tads recast, 2 successes, will take 20 combat turns to sustain, warns team
• Kai talks to sergei, offers him a drink eventually, says he wants 600 nuyen (500 for troop, 100 for elite commander), Kai negotiates, offers 300 nuyen split 100/200 with 2 bottles of vodka
• Tads cleanses signature
• Kai – so where are we going, because tonight you’re getting us all hotel and food georgi. Oh, nothing like a free job eh, ok, back to the middle of the town
• Negotiates, tale of woe, Georgi caves
• Go to a nice hotel, have dinner. Marius wants to take Nadia out to paint the town, she wants somewhere quiet.
• Nadia takes Marius off after dinner and has a bit of a breakdown – Marius fails charisma check, it does not go well. Connects to the web, tries again, has a reroll – goes well, that’s them for the night
• Hunter goes for a long bath, Aswon goes to bed. Say goodbye to Georgi, Kai info dump everything about the jewish guys and the chopper. Mention the warlord and they need to do a deal for safe passage. Then the team go to bed
• Karma break.
• Back to the ranch – 400km, smooth journey, back to the ranch – Kai starts talking about setting up a base to ease nadia into the idea
• Rancher explains about the problem – the team is generally agreeable

Next week I suspect they will be getting in supplies in Shirvan, and dealing with the local Mafia.

Kren's Shadowrun game update:
This weeks episode is up at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56708382588964/

Here are the notes:

• At the horse ranch, talking with them about the mafia issue
• Escalating demands before, then the horse burning, then the team, then some new people have started to turn up, pairs or a few, noting down that they have just started coming back, and are due back in between 1 and 3 days
• Plan to go into shirvan, marius and shimazu to make trackers for the mafia vehicles. Plans for shimazu to ward the vehicles
• Tads looking at the dagger – assenses ok, f2 hand made punch dagger, a bit rough, but no special properties
• Discussion between kai and aswon about how effective the sniper rifle is
• Hunter and Marius go to check out the stables and garage
• Rusudan asks if he needs matrix connection (he uses his phone for answering booking questions) – says he will get some to Aswon, miscommunication
• Put the trailer in the garage and the truck by the garage, mostly out of sight, set the photovoltaics to mimic a grain truck
• Plans to ward various stuff – inside of thesis box, the truck, get 10 more lodge materials,
• Marius – wanting to train charisma 3>4 (1 success, 8 karma = 56 days 224 hours), etiquette 0>1, Azerbaijani 2>3 (Nadia trainer 1 success, Marius 3= 1 day)
• Tads initiates, asks elk for masking – takes Aswon in with her, gets 2 success on etiquette (defaulting) test – takes 1 hour, gets masking
• Hunter, research construction on agricultural buildings – 2 success – most stuff available as pre-fab design, available on reasonably short lead times – they want a vehicle workshop, enchanting shop, lodge, secure arms locker,
• Steel frame building 10m X 20m = 12K, 1 week delivery time
• Explosives storage container, 6m = 15K
• 8 berth static caravan with delivery = 20k
• Tads calls Aslick, asks about selling back formula, ugh, inc reflex 1 – available in stock, asks for more lodge materials and warding materials at least 6 of each
• Kai talks to Rus about the business, he has no local relatives, ranch holidays
• Get some background on shirvan and a tour of the house
• Kai talks to rus and says he wants to invest in his business and make this his base – he’s my liege lord, of course!
• Shimazu puts a perm F6 ward on his theis box – succeeded
• Plan to put up 2 arches and ward on the entry routes.
• Kai asking about kids plans, Hunter looks for online course for vets etc
• Tads makes basic foods in the kitchen, Neana notices, tells Rus – he checks with Kai, exposure to magic
• Hunter on watch in the field under one of Aswons wild hunt suits
• Group makes F10 ward upgrade to the truck – Aswon (1), Tads (0), Shimazu (1) – finish at 11pm
• Hunter on stag all night – WP5 test, no problem,
• Tads summons spirit at dawn – wind spirit F4, 3 successes, Breakfast in the morning – honey oat cakes, jam+porridge,
• Plan to deal with the mafia, extract info, work up the chain, kai wants intel, see how widespread they are
• Aswon goes upon to the roof by the chimney after breakfast, takes purdey and an AR
• Nadia into the horses, Eteri helps her. Shimazu goes for a run and looks for a shrine spot
• About 10:30am, car turns in – battered, but polarised windows. Aswon gets a 9 on stealth, they get a 14 on perception, they get about halfway to the house spot him and then stop
• Aswon freezes, restealth, respot – fail, they move to front of the house and go onto the veranda, knock on the door, Rusudan answers,
• Put the lean on Rusudan, Kai tells the wife to go tell them that guest are coming tomorrow – they agree to come back tomorrow. Tads sends spirit to follow the car with rubbish woolly instructions – it’s very confused. Marius sends condor to follow, vehicle stealth + signature = 17

Plans for this week - I have a rough sketch for the mafia, with a chain of command and table of organisation, idea of weapons and the type of graft they're running - and that they're doing a bad job.
Local town=Haji-gabul, Mafia branch – Mammadova Clan
Popular surnames: Mammadova, Mammadov, Aliyeva, Aliev, Huseynova, Huseynov
Hasanova, Hasanov
Popular first name: Ulvi, Subhan, Vagif, Vusal, Ruslan, Malik, Azer, Royal
Mafia have the local town sown up and and squeezing hard – too hard. To the point of guarding supermarkets, and if your names not down youre not coming in – and probably starving.
Shirvan mafia led by Malik Mammadova, his son Ulvi has been sent to Haji-gabul to make a go at running his mafia. Chip on the shoulder, running the place into the ground, and getting to the point where the authorities will have to kick back, despite the bribes.
Local chief of police is Vusal Aliev, has been on the take since the start, in too deep now and keeps urging Ulvi to relax a little, but gets told to butt out. He’s looking for a solution too…
Uliv has 3 teenaged cousins (from his brother Malik) as his captains – they’re all very young, headstrong and bloodthirsty, and about 30 soldiers. Mostly armed with knives and coshes for day to day stuff, they have 2/2 armour and pistols and shotguns in the cars, which they may start carrying if the tension escalates. Normally all comms are via mobiles, with 10 soldiers or so reporting to each captin, then to Ulvi.
So, they can go mental, and just nuke the whole lot, and kick of a feud with the main mafia clan from Shirvan - not that they'll be much tougher, but it's even more conflict, and they'll call in the boys in Baku...
Or, if they research and find out how unpopular the mafia are, they can do a series of more surgical strikes to take out the leadership, and rein them in. The Shirvan branch might be persuaded to see reason, and strike a deal - at least for now, and they can avoid a lot of violence.
We'll have to see how this pans out.

This weeks episode is now up and available to read at the usual place.

*Warning - this week got really quite dark and violent, way more graphic than usual. Writeup contains scenes of torture and body mutilation etc. Viewer discretion advised and all that.*

I'm not quite sure what got into Kai, but we ended up down a pretty dark chain of events. Had a word with him afterwards and we'll see where we go next week.

But - as usual, here's the list of notes that led to the writeup, so you can see how it *actually* went rather than how the victors wrote the story. Or something like that...

• Drones and spirit reveal location of mafia hideout, tads astral scout, no magical defences
• Discussion amongst team – what is the police, what is the response, how are they armed, we can do an assault and completely overmatch them,
• Aswon suggests intel gathering, Shimazu and Tads can’t speak Azerbaijani, others can,
• Tads goes astral scouting, 6 in there, tiny amount of cyberware, datajacks and stuff, they are playing cards at the moment. Magical conversation about spirits, domains and stunning. Hunter and Marius prep weapons, silencers and stuff
• Day is Tuesday, they pull up map of area, plan to scout out – tads does another recon of the area and finds normal families in surrounding buildings
• Kai briefs the family that they are taking out the mafia. Family agrees – they ask to borrow the farm transport, Rus says he will get the horse and cart set up – what about the truck, the mafia took it, oh, never mind
• Driving into town to drop off invisible hunter for surveillance – Inivs F5 7 success, truck vehicle mask F5 4 success – grain truck
• Drive into town, Hunter stealth = 7, rest drive around – low density urban sprawl, 20% have a vehicle, railway and local business employ most.
• Team spot the supermarket sting and a person being turned away, outside team parking up, marius prepping drones, spot that the goons have guns in shoulder harnesses
• Hunter hears a collector come in, moan about the take being low, joins the game. Hunter notices no land line phones.
• Mr Mammadova turns up, talks to the goons, “we will squeeze them” speech. Team discuss – we should go now there’s a dozen in the same place, with the boss. Hunter gets the car plates. Spikes the exhaust with something from the veg patch
• Shimazu stealths over, rest of team grab autofire
• Marius drops the team off at the house and drives away a bit, Aswon passes grenades and AR to Hunter. Kai facial sculpt to look Chinese
• Condor above the house, dalmation on the side ready to strafe, ground drone with mgl ready to deploy, Tads and hunter by window, rest of team by back door. Tads drops spells and summons F3 city with 3 services,
• Hunter punches the glass, breaks through, drops the grenade, Tads cast stunbolt at S while Hunter pulls the curtain aside, gets one 9 and a bunch of nothing, buys 2, total of 3, bad guys get 1, they all drop, team storm the building – it goes like clockwork.
• Then there’s an argument about who’s being abducted and what to do with them.
• Another courier coming to the house, gets tased as he comes in.
• Shimazu murders all the table goons, they check the 4 find they are all mamadova, strip them and tie them up. Get the keys for the suv and load the goons in the back, Shimazu will drive, building is doused in spirits
• Find the pocket secretary and the credstick, transfer the money over to their own stick – 20k, dump the old stick, bag up the p-sec
• Are we going back to the farm – no, they may have trackers or implants, and also we don’t want to create a background count at the farm. Leave a candle on an angle near the furniture to set a delay fire
• Heading north of town to the ridge – about 8pm, should be there by 8:30-8:45ish
• Aswon “ this is not soldiers work” – goes to guard. Shimazu stays in the truck with his earplugs in. Tads goes off to look at wildlife, Shimazu goes to join her. Marius checks the land cruiser over – battered, poorly maintained and very old, but ok – needs a tune up, but then should run fine.
• Hunter puts overalls on and covers face, writes names on their foreheads, Kai wakes up #2, then tries #3, no good , wakes #4, #1 woken up last. Kai executes #2, then #3, execute all but the boss, #1 tries to get free, makes some headway, then gets Hunter move behind him with the knife. More interrogations, then kai starts to stab him, fails WP check,
• Kai starts to interrogate, Hunter translating “we’re the yaks”
• Kai ritually despoils the bodies in a systematic fashion while talking with Mr M, he is inchoherent with rage, not really tracking, Kai finish him off.
• Shimazu gets pooh in his shoe, Tads confirms that there is nothing to talismonger up her. Kai desecrates the last one in the same style
• Tads sterilises the area, then cleanses, then mountain spirit to remove traces of the team as they leaves, then back to the ranch. Family and nadia waiting with dinner.
• Sending the mamadova driving licences to Constantinople to Marius contact Milo, sets up the spray booth to respray the land cruiser

One of the main things I changed there was the very end, where I just chop out the bit about respraying the car. That shit can wait till next week (it won't affect the plot at all) and I wanted the cliffhanger ending of them all sitting around the table looking at each other, and at Kai wondering just what the hell is going on. Going to be interesting to see what happens next week.

Another episode up, found here

The team continued in their efforts to clean up the local town and eradicate the local mafia - hitting them hard and fast in a single night and aiming for a clean sweep. Currently they're on track to achieve this, as the presence is quite small and self contained.

Notes:

• Kai leaves the room. Aswon asks Hunter to check the satnav on the mafia truck, then asks family to leave the room “what you don’t know, can’t hurt you”. Check the satnav – not revealing. Kai sets up the spray booth for the
• Tads asks Hunter for 2-3 maps, major landmarks to search for wolf-tribe
• Kai calls Marius, asks him to crack local LEO about issues in town – intercept radio, house fire is under control, but they will call in the guys from shirvan because of who’s house it was. Some guys are rousting out the neighbours and dragging them into the streets.
• Marius – we’ve kicked the anthill, we may have to leave town and leave them to their fate. Marius in favour of pre-emptive strike to work up the chain before the message gets through. Tads – we’re going to have to be careful
• 2nd radio report – they’ve just executed someone from one of the neighbours house – police
• Tads goes to scout – 6-7 people harassing the neighbours,
• Marius gets the trailer hooked up and gets ready to get the suv – then spots the suv in the spray booth
• Tads confirms the 2 goons from the supermark are in the 6-7
• Check town census – 8% surname mammadova of 15K
• Kai – the police are at least paid off, if not actively involved. Try to work out how many cops there are – somewhat variable. We can deal with the problem and then tell the cops – no more of this shit. Kai doesn’t want to murder them in town, as the them is pretty well covered. Wants to follow them and knock them off quietly. Aswon – not happy with them knocking off townsfolk
• Tads goes to astral scout – see the second cop turn up and try to remonstrate with the 6-7, not doing too well. Tads talks to Kai and Aswon via astral
• Aswon and Kai arguing about what to do – aswon saying if you (the team) don’t go, I’m going to have to. Tads goes back to scout town.
• Kai – we have the bosses sim, put in a burner phone, realise that it means there is very few cops on duty. Turn on the phone, get the messages – Azer, one of the captains, asking the locals
• Try to analyse the bosses text messages –
• Plan to take the mobsters to the railyard – Tads scouts, 2 people in the signal tower,
• Shimazus plan – Shimazu, Tads, Kai in the SUV, they come into full beam, rest of team in support position, stunball.
• Kai – what’s your best range – Aswon 500 yards, Hunter “a lot closer”. Hunter calls Julius Jones, Ares Data Researcher. How urgent – not mega, but ASAP.
• Text Azer – we’re tracking a vehicle, how many you guys you got. Truck+trailer, + SUV into town.
• Tads does trid-d, 3 success F6 on the vehicle. Azer responds when they text – I have 6 guys, team
• Planning for the ambush –Aswon suggests put trid-p of “grain truck” – marius disagrees – Kai explains ambush idea, some discussion, Shimazu raises the idea about Tads having issues about drain to get the spell off. There are two trains parked on the lines. Tads will try to reshape the spell
• Marius put up condor and vtol in the air, rest find sniper perches, Stealth= Aswon 8 Hunter 15
• Kai – Banana is the code word to rock and roll. Grain truck not shot up – spell reshaped ok,
• Goons arrive, drop trid-d, stunball at S, they get 1 success, Tads gets 9, takes stun up to M, whole party drop,
• Shimazu checks the car – dirty but empty, no more passengers. Not killing here, stripping for IDs and phones. Two vehicles are not linked that it appears. Shimazu executes the 6 goons with a combat knife. Hunter hoovers the guns. Tads sterilises area. Aswon and Kai discussing what to do with the bodies – Aswon, if we fill a gorge with bodies the feds *will* come. Marius notices fuel is starting to dent reserves with his dalmation,
• Take second SUV up into the mountain, scare off the nightlife, check Azer make sure he’s ok. Shimazu gets some butt cheeks and feeds to the leeches, everyone else a bit worried at first, Tads moves the leaches out then goes into the trailer to do spell learning – 1 hour before stun gone to pain resistance level
• Kai - Plan to scrape data from SIM cards to build up a pattern, build up a org chart, Nadia helps – work out they have 2 captains (Malik and Royal) and 11 goons outstanding – cross reference loads of info with Nadia
• Marius – working on a way to triangulate signals – computers, 2 6s, need to access cell towers.
• Aswon summarises how they have moved in correctly – in for freight, buy off the police, then squeeze the town
• Kai suggests using influence to get inside Azers head,
• Nadia does more info searches for Kai – finding out their scams. Main one was the supermarkets, then “fire protection”,
• Shimazu checks bodies – all low level stuff of no real value
• Work out the org chart – they have “mum” and “dad” so there is an alternate route to reach Malik
• How do we get the other 2 captains to come to us – use Ulvis number, claim it was an “inside job”, so only you can be trusted, meet us at the trainyard,
• Group thinking about how to drop them / split them up. Kai texts both captains, where are you now? Both by supermarkets
• Hunter sends org info to Julius to help out

Episode 082 is now posted and can be found at: this location!


Notes from the session:

• Leave the tan SUV up in the hills, team head back to town, calling Malik to the train yard, rinse and repeat. Stunball at S, 11 successes, plop. Drained,
• Off white panel van, Marius checks for trackers- doesn’t find, but disgusted by state of vehicle.
• Check the van, find the light pistols, and 4 shotguns,
• Do we steal the goons credsticks – kai, no – that would affect their families, they do take Malik and raid his bank account, getting 4k
• Shimazu biotech – plastic bags to asphyixiate the goons rather than knife to execute them, stops forensic trail
• What do we do about the last lot – take them out at the supermarket, no – that might get messy. Just ask them to come and bring cleaning supplies.
• Check the phones for more info. Kai gets Nadia to send message to Royal from Azer saying “wow, it’s all got messy, make sure the boys are ready, the boss is pissed”
• Nadia gets a message – “head down” emoji
• Go up north again, not take the white panel van off road, transfer the bodies, Hunter and Aswon go back to town in the white panel van. Rest of the team just dumping the bodies for now, then heading back to town.
• Tads – do we need to go to shirvan next – hunter, no, we don’t have enough info.
• Shall we get a spirit to dispose of the bodies – lets wait until we’ve got them all
• Tads and Shimazu go back in the tan SUV. Head to station
• Kai, Marius and Nadia head back in the truck.
• Now 1am, all back at the station ok. Send message to Royal from Ulvi, come to the station, bring all the bleach. Get in two vehicles, Royal and six goons.
• Hunter and Aswon hide (5, 9), White panel van turned off, Tan SUV turned on with lights on, parked in front of white van – Tads and Shimazu in, Hunter and Aswon on roof, rest in the truck, Marius to have Dalmatian ready to launch, and condor up in the air.
• Two cars arrive, enter the square, Aswon aiming at the rear vehicle, 4 out of the first vehicle, 3 from the second, tads goes to cast, totem says no. Tads, plan B folks! Kai = Banana!
• Shimazu leap out of car and attack the closest – 10D, dead, Marius launch drone, Kai get out, Nadia get out with SMG
• Hunter shoot at rear target, 10D dead first target, then 9D dead, Aswon CSAS, 13D, dead, Tads, curl up in a ball and hide.
• Shimazu attacks Royal, does an M – he’s actually quite handy in CC. Aswon delay – no clear shot, Hunter single shot still, 9d, spends his karma takes an M, then a D, Nadia shoots at one, misses, misses target, misses Shimazu, hits Royal, burns karma, takes an M, Tads continues to explain to totem, bad guys go – goon draws weapon, Royal shouts I surrender, Kai – kill em
• Marius obliterates the last gun with the Dalmatian, Nadia holds fire, out of combat time
• Shimazu calls for Tads to heal him – no, I’m busy. Marius drops the drone back into the rack, Hunter looks for shells, Tads argues with the floating pair of eyes, Kai executes Royal mercifully, Shimazu “I’d rather you didn’t”
• 7 pistols, 7 shotguns, 80 more shotguns, 200 rounds of light pistol, assorted cleaning supplies, Hunter polices his brass, both climb down. Clean the scene using the cleaning materials, wipe down the two ladas, take the bosses bank account for 3k,
• Shimazu and Aswon go and ditch a lada at the burnt out house, then return in the other
• Eyes go to one of the goons, look sad, look up, look down, look up fade away. They find out the ID of the young one – Vusal Aliyeva, Tads gets very militant – we WILL investigate this one. – Address is a low class residential area in the poorer area of town
• Tads explains a bit that elk was interested in this guy for some reason, wants to trace him and find out. Shimazu suggest trying to cast spells, to find out how she is affected – Tads says no, that’s disrespectful to poke and experiment like that. Healing and spirit summoning probably affected. Shuimazu approaching this very logically, Tads from the heart.
• Get the 2nd lada somewhere else in town, pick up the drive, take the white panel van (Aswon) and the Tan SUV (Shimazu), Marius to listen in on the police comms – no carrier way. Shimazu police procedures – probably want a mobile call, recharging
• Shimazu talks to Nadia about targeting. Hunter advises on shot selection. Nadia defiant to start off with, but accepts training.
• Check over more of the comms – two goons unaccounted for, one from Azer, one from Royal.
• Kai suggests – contact them, you’re in trouble, meet us at X, tasers, finish them. Possible loose ends. Kai texts both – one response (Azer), one doesn’t. Message from Azer saying “text royal with your address”, do the same with the other guy in reverse.
• Take the panel van out into the sticks and then clean and leave, take the bodies up the hill to join the rest. Still got the Tan Suv – Shimazu fails handling check, loses a wheel, they abandon it.
• Kai – how magically borked are you, tads goes into the lodge, explains the reasons and life cycle, summons F4 ok, half a dozen hyenas get fed, Kai puts a little grave marker on each scrape.
• Check the house, it’s a big one, like the first house, Tads suggests looking for other big houses to find the. Tads goes to find the one in bed, no magical defences, find the guy, riddled with disease
• Now about 2:30 am, Shimazu suggests setting fire, the others – no, too far.
• Hunter finds 3 possible houses, check the bosses satnav, both the poorly guy and one of the 3 matches a track. Tads checks, guy is having sex, +1 background count, she goes to make him a sammich and coffee.
• Kai – I hope you’re not getting your dick wet, wtf are you.
• Have we got a laser mic – yes, we can try calling to make sure we have the right guy. Distance between houses is 1300m, drop Hunter off near nookie house, listen – hear the buzz of the phone on silent. Tads confirms poorly is still there,
• Aswon – do we need to kill them, or terrorise them Kai – kill em. Kai and Tads dress up as doctors, plan to taser, walk in last part, into house, flicks blankets back – vitas-syphalis, Kai tries to work out what it was. Humane killing, with his own pistol.
• Head to mr nookie, Shimazu go to door, Tads in astral, warns him, Shimazu throws a knife to him, he dodges and goes for his gun. Shimazu then executes him. Checks the girl – badly wounded,
• Kai plan to send Nadia and Marius to take the truck away, then ransack the house and gather intel
• House like the first one – Hunter says “you wanna show elk these pictures of the family” –
• Tads heals the girl, essence 5 BGC=1, drops her to M+1, tie her up and blindfold / earplug her. Test her for STD, she is a carrier.Hunter leaves message on her phone – you have an STD. Checking the phone there is evidence of her affair with the dude over the last month, Kai deletes records of her. No armoury or stash
• Plan to take girl to parents, leave a note saying she is infected, take her to hospital, leave some cash for her – 4k on a certified credstick. Load the body into a morturary bag and get Nadia/Marius back, go to the pox house.
• Aswon suggests actually burn this one down. Kai wants to return to original people. Get a body bag, then burn it – tads, I won’t be around for that. Bury mr nookie, burn mr poorly, then back to the ranch to rest. Kai asks Nadia to check on messages from Ulvi to Malik – how is the father/ son relationship. Arrive back at around 4:30. Rusudan checks that all is ok, Kai gives him the other 3k credstick to pay back for what they had to give the mafia.

Next week - I imagine there will be some base building and admin stuff, and I may look at a little karma as they've freed the town from the clutches of the evil mafia overlords. Beyond that - I'm not sure where they're going next, will have to see where the team leader takes them.
Still a whole bunch of pissed off people after them though!

Episode 083 is now up and live, and can be found at the usual place

This week, the team were mostly getting the local law onside, working out who / what was compromised by the Mafia and checking for loose ends around town. Tads, the shaman is still being militant following the appearance of her magical avatar to her in the previous session - especially as she lost access to her magic. But, overall, this was a "tidying up" session that was quite RP heavy for Kai and Hunter by extension (as he was doing the translation).

Notes from the session - a bit more divergence from what happened at the table to what happened in the narrative this week, to make it flow better.

• Hunter stays on watch, rest sleep. Aswon gets up after 4 hours to take watch, Hunter goes to sleep at 8am. Shimazu gets up 11, hikes into the hills to do meditation and scouting for his shrine.
• Tads gets woken up at dawn to summon a spirit – on +2 for fatigue, summons hearth, 1 success F4, guard the house. Kai does not sleep – mind churning over things.
• Hunter comes back in from the field, Aswon goes to the roof – puts climbing hooks in, makes an ammo bag for hunters rifle – 2 successes on a Q5 sewing check.
• Aswon checking the road – looking for convoys and stuff in town – can see the eastern part of town, terrain is pretty flat.
• Kai – we have at least a day probably before the people in Shirvan realise the town has gone dark
• Check Ulvi’s phone – who else has he called, almost nobody – just a couple of businesses in Shirvan or local town, other than that his dad and his troops only. Tads – how long are we staying, Kai – we plan on staying a while – we had the trailer with us in case we fucked up and had to leave – but we didn’t, so we’ll stay. We’ll watch for Maliks response. Tads – right, so I can get spells and materials and stuff. Kai – lets not shop for stuff that will make us noticeable locally. Tads, we can go elsewhere, we need to fix deficiencies.
• Working out where to get bikes, distances to locations, what vehicles to get – do they rescue the tan SUV and take that away as well. Ask Nadia to do info searches on the target for Tads in the slums. Kai explains how important this is – it’s not just a Tads thing.
• Do we get the police involved – Aswon, they’re easily swayed. If we go put pressure on them, they;’ll cave – but they’ll cave back when the mafia come back. We want to put them under surveillance and keep an eye on them. Kai asks Marius to continue to monitor police frequency. Talk about the police – they don’t know anything at the moment.
• Tads – lets go take the 2 vehicles to Baku, trade them in for a new one, and use that for going to shirvan – completely unknown vehicle then, rather than ones known to the syndicate.
• Aswon goes to look for Shimazu to do some driving – not in the ranch in bed, unknown location.
• Kai – how much time to fix the tan SUV – marius, no more than a day to fix stuff.
• Plan – Aswon takes Tads to the talismongers, do shopping, while Kai and Marius go to get the tan suv and come back to the ranch, then once all together, and results from Nadia, go to shirvan and scout. Thoughts to the team that Nadia might need a day, maybe two to actually do a detailed search.
• Hunter waiting for Julius to call back with info on Malik in Shirvan.
• Tads goes shopping, Increase reflexes F3, F1 lodge materials, nothing else she wanted in stock
• Marius and Kai go to get the tan SUV, it’s battered, but fixable, decide to canabilise it, not worth keeping it. Coming back through town, spot a tail. Slow down, it slows down, Kai calls Tads – can you come do magic shit?
• Tads comes to the ranch, then into town, spots the truck and merges in, talks to kai.
• Radio intercept – “you’re not going to believe what I’ve just seen”, “what”, “I’ve just found one of the vehicles, its on the back of a strange truck”. Team goes to brown alert.
• Tads gets into police car ok, manifests, fails WP test, fails crash test. Screaming, through the wall of a house, Kai rushes to his aid with a taser
• Kai takes him to the truck, guide him inside in shock, pulls a taser on him, kidnap him – who are you, officer Aliev, is that officer Husyenova on the other end, goes even more wide eyed. Gets Hunter to start translating for him, playback the radio call from just before the crash, we’re going to have a little chat, but first tell your friend you’ve had a crash and you’re ok but you’ll call back in an hour. Marius plays back the recordings from the previous night, guy looks ashamed, Kai knows it.
• Things happened last night, you’re going to find out about them, we wanna help you.
• Hand him the radio, unjam, gives an ok performance, does as told. Others here – not natural, but not bad.
• Tale of woe, small bribes to start, then more and more
• Ask nadia to check for cell phone footage, ask about the girl, she went to the brothel, get the address – near the central house, like the one in Alerroso, Tads checks the brothel, then back to ranch, back to her body.
• Asks about the mafia in Shirvan – knows nothing
• Hunter telling tads to learn fething Azerbaijani! Tads wants a rosetta stone software, NO – just learn it!
• Tell your friend to come, you’re asking me for a lot of trust, ok taser away, put your gun belt back on.
• We ran into these guys the other night, we ran into them, fire, innocent bystander dead, we’re sorry about that, interrupt – they’re dealt with – yes, they’re not a problem anymore. WE like the town, we’re going to help clean it up. Hunter ads “we’re neighbourhood watch”. What about the footage from the bribes – we’re working on it. Check if they have a dashcam on police car – no. Ask colleague to check on supermarkets
• More details on the type of activites. Ask colleague to keep an eye out for anyone. Marius listens and confirms, Hunter is jogging to meet the truck.
• “do you want to know about the gambling den” – why yes. Spills details. Doesn’t know personal details
• Kai – we have all the mobiles, we will check, if the video hasn’t gone anywhere, then it’s clean slate time. Radio call – northern supermarket clear, lots of people shopping, hurridly,
• Are we on the same page, no, I’m about 2 pages back, but catching up. Are we ok, please don’t “take care of me”. Hunter arrives, Marius drops the suspension, Kai – lets research them in shirvan, Hunter – no, bad idea, they will have the computers infiltrirated, if not the police,
• Don’t’ worry about the ghost either – it’s not entirely unreleated
• Kai arranging to go speak with the other copper, he reports in that supermarket 2 is also clear, and no signs of bad guys
• Kai to marius – can we get into the cell towers, bit harder in town, smaller cells but more clutter
• Hunter to Julius – how are we doing, ok, busy night, pew pew pew, passes over maliks number to aid research, and asks for a map of movements
• Aswon – hunter, can you get your decker friend to search on the kid for tads – no, he’s busy on something, quite abrupt.
• Tads do you need to go to shirvan, or can you ask elk for more details, discussion, tads thinks she needs to do it herself.
• Kai and Hunter goes to other copper, talking
• Are you Russian spetsnaz, Nyet! Marius adds “does this guy think we’re spetsnaz” understood by the second guy.
• Hunter examines gun, service issue, decent gun but lightweight,
• Kai exchanges contact details. What is your fathers name – call sign ask for Deputy X. Hunter brings two of the best shotguns and a load of shells. What about the 3 houses – no, they were taken care of, examples to the town. Kai – can you secure the houses.
• Talk about the girl – fill in the details about the girl with the infection, dataslate, medical money – Hunter tells them word for word on the dataslate. Hunter checks that the coppers have not been recording / taking photos of the team – no.
• Getting the team together and heading for shirvan.

Hola - a little delayed, as we skipped a week, but here is this weeks update - and in the comments on the FB page are 12 "slides" give to the players as handouts to clue them in on future events.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56803331363964/

Notes from the game -

It was amusing to watch Lee and Jez, both 20 year+ veterans of Shadowrun forget how credsticks worked, and have to realize they'd made a really silly basic mistake. Also - Tom (Shimazu) discovered that though he was off sick the week before, he was *not* in what we call the "blanket box". So, he got to have a little bit of solo fun at the start of the run, and I got to dangle another side quest in front of the team...

Shimazu – fallen into cave system, knockers cave system – B or WP test vs 10s – none, reroll, gets one. Moves through tunnel, finds the latrine, then the gem, takes, eventually runs into a knocker, taser – dodge, second action, drops it, beheads it, covers himself in their blood, takes the head as a warning, keeps going eventually finds a fissure and gets up to the surface. Calls Kai, “I fell in a hole, please send help” Tad scouts and finds Shimazu pretty easy. Shimazu starts to head back, Tads taks Nadia to ask Rusudan for a horse, one of the kids comes too – takes about 40mins to get there and back, Shimazu hands over the gem, Tads geology roll – semi precious about 3k value. Shimazu sent to shower as everyone is looking at him funny and he stinks.
After cleaning, realise he is on Moderate, biotech from Kai – consistent to a fall, drops him to a Light, Tads heals, Shimazu describes his afternoon – went to sleep, then in a hole, very confused. Team fills him in on what they have been doing
Tads – I need to investigate Vusul, not leaving the area. Hunter – we’re a team, Tads, I might have to leave the team – much cross talking. Phone buzzes – Hunter gets download from Julius. Hunter tells everyone to learn Azerbaijani. Kai – is there a translate spell, yes – Tads has it, but can’t be used when astral,
Nadia asks Marius for a sat dish, computer with 1000mp of ram, multiple trode input and a datajack, large rollout screen and some backup storage.
Tads asks for setting up F1 lodge in her seat. Team generally ok with this. Marius – ok. Handouts being circulated – not understand the economics – Nadia makes a test, passes and interprets data. Shimazu says he is pretty much using the industry to clean his money, that’s why he is still making money? Marius picks up on the guy objecting to UCAS investment. Tads – which was Esprit, the one we messed up, or the one we pretened to be, or the one we worked for. Working for Mearsk, pretending to be Espirit,
Tads - Do we ignore Shirvan and let that be a cesspit and keep our town clear – Marius, no, family links, caused loss of face, he has to react. Hunter – investigate Shirvan steel, 2 X 11s, run by Arif Farad, matrix site very out of date, very little information. 1 hour search. Then looking into election controversy,
Tads and Shimazu examine the head for talismongering materials – gets one unit of materials. Shimazu wants to keep the gem for talismongering purposes.
Search on opposition parties – 4 hours, major opponent was Tirek Mammadove – commercial focus, wants to encourage forgeign investment.
Aswon – can we use knockers for magical stuff – sustaining foci for shape earth etc
Kai gets tads to search for monkeypocalyspe
What shall we take to Shirvan – Aswon we should take the truck, it’s our mobile base, it needs to be nearby, the 4 X 4 has been resprayed it should *probably* be safe, Tads – can we deface the barcode to help? Probably.
Tads – can we infiltrate on the bus / train? No – look around the team, only Kai and Nadia could blend.
Kai asks for more computer searches – check for all, bad idea, all traceable, flags everywhere.
Talk – tads proposes using physical mask to disguise people so they can go and do scouting
Marius – goes to try and spoof tags on the 4X4, searching for a tag to copy
Aswon – can we sell the leaches, and the shares please – oh and the punch dagger.
Kai asks the family about the local politician – their view is that he’s very corrupt. Team all goes to bed. Quiet night, no activity from Malik.
Thursday 19th, Tads spots food supplies are low, Tads makes some food. Take the truck and the 4X4 into Shirvan, leave the trailer behind. Tads casts physical mask on hunter, badly drops and recasts, 7 successes, F3 – looks like a big, thuggish human.
Kai messages policemen – all ok in town. Rings them, asks them about police station, ask if no-go areas (no), where is the politician (posh area, near city centre), does the mayor have private security (yes)
Marius, Nadia, Tads and Aswon in the truck. Nadia –am I researching or coming, stamps foot, Aswon – we’re getting better stuff come one, I’ll put the kettle on.
Shimazu driving the 4X4, Kai, and Hunter
Pass Ruduan – going shopping, mentions that the credstick had no value on it – team confused, aswon checks own sticks Marius realises that the credit transfer was not validated at a bank, so reversed. Kai transfers 4k onto a certified credstick, to give to him. Rusudan goes shopping, rest of team head to shirvan….

Session 85 is now published, and the master story PDF updated:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56839737393964/

Notes from this session

1. Aswon cleans his rifles, waiting in the truck in a cycle, Marius – looking for ram raid targets in Shirvan, Shimazu waiting in the 4X4 ferrying people around as needed, Hunter following Kai, Tads holding spell up and prepping lodge, Kai, heading to the construction company
2. Truck heads to east side of town, set up sat dish, then Nadia starts searches
3. 4X4 heads for Mammadova construction – spot lots of people starting at the car – no shaded windows, they decide to drive away and see if they are tailed, head north, Kai calls for drone backup, M preps blimp, car heads north, past steel mill, M gets 27 on stealth, 24 on spotting, all good
4. Get back in the north of town, still people staring at car/Shimazu,
5. Aswon makes a list of names and people on the police radio.
6. 4X4 stops at a clothing shop and they try to buy some headgear, Kai tries to buy a headwrap, gets a 2, gets a tie, gets Hunter, buys some stuff – K asks M are we clear, yes,
7. Head to the boys family, horrible area, 2 vehicles, one with old guys, urchins watching the car. Kai gets out to talk to urchins, Kai asks for location of house, then gives kids a choccy bar, and 10 nuyen, they run, other kids spot and give chase, team move to the house.
8. Kids up on the roof doing a legger, spotted by Marius,
9. Heading to mammadova construction
10. Fewer, but harder stares from the people as they spot the repeat pass
11. Mammadova construction, shit exterior chainlink fence, 50-60 people, very manual work, no cameras. Kai asks for drone surveillance on one of the 3 posh cars in the compound one really nice, 2 just nice, then head back to the truck
12. Check over the 3 cars, top end mass production style. Talk with the team – why were we being watched, just an unusual vehicle in town. Drop the mask on Hunter, Kai asks for an astral flyby, Tads summons watcher to relay messages, head to the windmill, then back to the house.
13. Asense – run down, miserable, natural, sad, 3 kids playing some kind of game and mother doing housework, mom and 3 kids (10-15)
14. Tads and Hunter spot the motobiker pulling out, double take and U turn, head towards them, Tads blurs the 4X4, 5 success on vehicle mask, Marius gets the truck started, Kai tells S to drive off, revs up and accelerates, K asks M to jam the radio, Tads drops the mask,
15. Aswon readies the hatch
16. Shimazu pulls over, biker stares through window in confusion, taser – dodge, taser (with reroll), no dodge on the 2nd, gets 2 on the soak, takes an S, +2 taser effect, Hunter goes to loom, Shimazu goes to hit, fluffs roll, does and L, biker tries to hit back, Shimazu stamps, does an S, overflows to M physical
17. Take his phone and ID, Hunter throws the bike into the canal, Shimazu thinks they should interrogate him, Kai says no. Aswon says get him to the truck and Tads can influence him to trust us
18. Drive south into the scrub, Tads cast influence, 8 successes, F6, “trust”. Novacaine and filler on the ribs, drops to a L, they wake him up
19. “Where’s ulvi” he’s busy, tell him he lost his phone, scrotes stole his bike, he used to go drinking with Ulvi, how did you recognise the car – only person he knows with that style of imported vehicle. Tell the team to leave his phone on the side of the road for him to find,
20. Send him on his way, discussion about getting rid of the truck – obviously distinctive, should we take it to Baku. Decide not to move,
21. Ask Tads to magic scout mammadova construction, roundabout route, BGC 2 overall, one spot of 3, checks car – the boss car – loves it, the other 2, just status symbols, check the admin block, 4 older people, finds another BGC3 area at the compactor, still no cameras
22. Waiting for the posh cars to move, Tads checks the bedsit again, no change
23. Aswon sends messages to contacts – just checking in. Spook and Mr Hu.
24. Shimazu contacts Sato – gets through. Clicks and beeps, I’ve moved, is your phone secure, no, well, I’ve moved away, far far away. Call you later
25. Trucks come back, Mammadova goes to his car, ]
26. Tads check the farm and hills for monkey-apocalypse
27. Tads sent o trail mamma, not magicaly active, some cyber – head and spine *mostly*, his servants come to greet him, she searches, checks for cameras, on all the main doors, 4 in the garage
28. Who is the closest match to mammadova asks kai, shit, it’s me.
29. Tell me about physical mask Tads…
30. Kai planning to destroy his business, getting Hunter physical mask, give orders, discussion amongst team about who is best – not aswon, hunter too big, as is Shimazu, Marius or Kai closest in size, Marius much better language skills
31. Kai – plan, go to his house, abduct him, neutralise the help, replace with Kai, play the “my family has been targeted, the house is bugged, I won’t talk”, show on a phone to the help, go to the business, get Marius in as the “computer security expert”, disperse funds, go to the house and “commit suicide”,
32. Tads – killed his nephews and suns, what about Mammadovas brother and sister? Shimazu psych test – doesn’t sound plausible. Marius agrees. Hunters says “Boss, you’re making it too complicated”.
33. Kai – do we do recon, or kill him now. Hunter says now, Shimazu agrees,
34. Tads – can we set up a bank account to steal his cash – not really, it would trace back to us eventually, We can get cash out onto cert sticks to a point, but that will also flag alarms
35. Marius checks for max amount of cash – 10k, double check Nadia, no it’s 5k, unless you are in certain business or political positions,
36. Tads – if we just want to get rid of him, can we booby trap his car.
37. Discussion about how to use spells to translate / influence
38. Tads – he’s a big shot in the local business community? Can we find out if he speaks other languages
39. Aswon – we should get sodim pentothal – can we make it? Maybe, quality control is a bitch.
40. Marius – lets keep it simple, take him out in his house, steal anything we can, and then just get out.
41. Aswon – we need to do this super professionally, and do it very down low.
42. Hunter – can we check if the help stay on site.
43. Tads, goes for a scout, wife and kid back, help still on site. 2 posh cars still on site, work going on late at night.
44. Team drive to Baku

First session back after a few weeks off due to R/L, so it took us a bit of time to get going - but they have managed to track the head bad guy to his house and found the love of his life - and his wife and kids, and are starting to hatch a plan.

Episode 086 is up now at the usual place

A little delayed posting - apologies if anyone was waiting. I was on holiday over the weekend and lost my usual writing time, and I've got this weeks to crack on with now - but helped that Aswon's player Jez wrote up a bunch of exposition about magic and how it works - from a certain point of view at least.

Here's the notes from the session:

• 9pm – Aswon calls Germaine to see if she wants a meet up, Shimazu only just passes a drive check – 4X4 not handling well,
• Tbird over from R to left, black, some magic leaking, 8m high, 800mpt, 2 mins later, 5 choppers, lock up the truck for a moment, overfly, renraku radar sets
• Tads – can you get into their radio – M, I’m not trying. Choppers start to diverge. Tads – could you not see them electronically, M no – RAMs, anti-sensors, ECMs. Hunter – nav check – failed.
• Work out that the tbird was possibly from iran/afghan – choppers came from somewhere else.
• Near ZIC – Hunter phone rings, gets asked to off the politician, team agrees, get over that it needs to be in 2 days.
• Kai – we’re not killing the wife or kids. Which? Asks Tads, both says Kai,
• Tads – want to take the family to the farm, but they need food and board, so we need to pay for that. Can’t just give them money – someone would just take it away.
• Kai – we have info on the gangsta mainly, lite on the politician – Aswon, we do have a bit of info from the report. Kai, we can manipulate via the sim cards for a bit, Shimazu – I don’t wanna do both targets together, it makes it more complex, 2 sets of bodyguards. Kai – do we know if either of the guys wants the other guy gone? Is there a symbiotic relationship. Tads – influence may help. Can we tell the gangsta boss the politician has had all his sons arrested. Get the mob boss to kill the politican, then kill the gangsta on his way home. Aswon – don’t kill the kids. Hunter – might be sister and nephew. Shimazu – bodyguards will either go mental, or freak out and hide.
• Head into Baku, head to the truck stop, rest. tAds –nadia, do you have plans – not get seen. Marius – who is the most normal looking, look at Kai. Why, you need to scope out the shop for the ram raid for the cyber-deck. Tads – you might end up scratching the truck? It’s ok – it’s like a manly scar
• Get to dawn, breakfast in the truck stop, then head out. Get details of 4 shops Identified
• Tad suggests stealing one and leaving an illusion behind, rather than ram-raid
• 4 shops in Baku have terminals / deck equivalents
• • 1 Ishmaels, electronics store, up to level 2 – main shopping street, halfway from edge to CBD, 75k
• • 2 Arif, dept store, level 1 – edge of town, 20k
• • 3 Rurak, computer training and supplies, level 2 – middle of town but backroad, 75k
• • 4 Teraks, electronics shop, up to level 3, middle of main CBD, corner plot, 100k
• Plan, get rid of the 4X4, then scope out the stores. Kais plan is to get someone in sneaky, hide until shop shuts, then grab and leave, into invis truck. Shimazu – might have shutters,
• Tads how about getting one from the stock room, under a burka?
• How about sending Marius in, he’ll just look like he owns the place. Tads – how about putting weight in a box, 3rd in the stack. Shimazu suggests putting a leech into the box…
• We need to check for wards – so maybe Shimazu. I’ll have to be holding my sword, ahh, perhaps not. Aswon maybe – he has masking.
• Going to sell the vehicle first – decide Marius is going to be doing the negotiations.
• Marius – I don’t know anyone in baku. Shimazu – well, there’s your girlfriends dad. *glares*
• Get to scrappies – he asks for how much for the truck, not for sale, just the 4 X 4, starts to appraise. Tads casts influence – 2 success, 1 resistance, influence to give a good deal. Offers 5k, Marius accepts, job done. Marius notes down co-ordinates
• Get to dept store, truck will not fit in multi story car park. Park up 300m away on some scrap ground.
• Tads does recon, F1 alarm polarized ward across inside of doors, does not open with doors, tads checks roof, finds lift hoist, warded, spots air con max body 4, tunnel through ward. Top half of building has stock room and café, then shops on both, shops on both at bottom. Hvac leads into utility room. Tads thinks of disabling the fan, getting a rope through the tube, someone inside gets a deck into the tube and pulled out via the tunnel
• Now coming up with all kinds of crazy plans…
• Kai and Tads going in, Marius shows her a picture, realise that won’t really help. Tads changes her mind. Kai goes in, gets lay of the land in the store, maps out toilets, departments etc
• G floor, left = mens, right = womens, stairs at back, 2nd floor home wares left, entertainment/spots/office to the right, 3rd floor stockroom left, café right.
• Tads and Hunter goes in, Hunter ID scanned by scornful security officer, moderately busy, lots of locals, lots of chatting, go up to café, tads casts invisibility on Hunter near the toilets. F5, (6 sixes, 1 5, 2 4s). Hunter stealth check – 5. Tads goes to café, sits and has food. Employee coming out notices something wrong with a 9. Then gets two more, calls in via the phone error in aircon, gets 2 more, then leaves.
• Hunter looks for stuff , will take 10 minutes to find, Kai goes into the store, feins being deaf, gets taken to pillows, gets 2 pillows and a big bag.
• Employee comes back with boss, some sniffing, can’t locate anything, they leave
• Hunter finds the decks, there are 2, very dusty, opens boxes, takes 2 decks, leaves empty boxes, hides the decks under his coat, about 20 mins to wait for him to get out. Person detects him on the way out too, calls it in. goes to Kai and transfers over decks. Hunters goes to buy some random clothing accessories, gets checked on the way out and bag searched, then heads out. Kai goes with and looks dirtily at hunter too, then all out.
• Coming up on midday when all done
• Plan – , Tads and Hunter to go buy a car, influence to get the best deal. Kai, Marius and Aswon go to speak to Turrel to arrange safe house.
• Aswon – can Nadias family find them a job – different city, chance to disappear, make a new start. Bit of team discussion about this, and what to do. Tads – Muslim charity, Aswon agrees, Marius – why are we bothered about this. Aswon –because Elk cares about it, so we care about it. Kai – more pressing need – killing the politician and the gangsta

Going to be interesting to see how they handle knocking off the politician, to keep their contact sweet.

I didn't think I'd get Episode 87 done as quickly, but a couple of 6am starts over the weekend - and well, here it is!

After throwing them a bit of a curveball last week with their contact calling them for a favour, and pushing the plot along with some wetwork requested, they've started to settle down and get their asses in gear. I've got floorplans for the mafia and the politicians houses ready to go, bodyguards and responses forces, and magical guards ready to rock and roll - time for a fight, unless the players are very sneaky!

Here's the notes:

• On the way to the van, jammer on, intending to scan decks. Recap of situation, plan to keep both decks, kai – not the wife and kids, Marius –no. politician Wife is dodgy to have lasted that long. Shimazu we need to do both the same night. Back at the van, Marius – handful of nothing, decks look clean. Tads – could it have an AoD? Marius, we can put it in the box with the jammer. Nadia checks the decks, wants a masking chip.
• Kai – time sensitive – we need the mob boss, the politician, Nadia interups, explains that they need a masking chip, black market only, Kai – who do we know? Aswon, we can try Germaine, but it may come with strings (lavender).
• Marius, make some calls, go to the town, kill the mob boss, get some of his money, kill the politician before the news breaks and tightens security. Tads to aswon, can we use the son to ask the dad for a masking chip? Aswon – that’s a bit specific and out of character. Marius – so no one has a tech dealer anywhere local. No.
• Kai called Germaine -“oh hi Aswon!” pleasentries. Can I get someone to talk to you. Marius – I don’t want to talk to that witch. How good, 3, is that all, ok, no problem ‘ll call back in 5.
• Germain likes face to face, arrange a meet, try not to take a job that doesn’t pay very well, (tads) and doesn’t start for 2 weeks.
• Aswon – we don’t have the intel on the politician, we need to scout. Kai, I think we’ll get the info from the first hit. Tads – mob boss might have politician on speed dial, can invite him over.
• Aswon – phone messages will be in code, Kai – assuming there is a contact at all. Shimazu – we could influence the mob boss to make the call, Tads even if they are enemies they will be in contact, due to the power levels. Aswon, if we have him under influence, we can work out friends/enemies, and use an appropriate story. Kai we need to isolate the mob boss from the world. Tads, I don’t want to kill the servants, they get treated like shit.
• Germain, calls, out fishing at the moment, meet me at the marina at 5pm. Aswon – we need a hard case for the rifle from a music shop. Kai – right, we have a team time date with G, everyone get spruced up. Hunter – I’m not going. Shimazu, are we going to speak to Turul about dead kids family getting a job. Nadia – I think this is a bad plan, you should not speak to my dad, I’ve seen you try to lie, you’re not good at it.
• Kai – we think elk is angry for killing the kid. Can you ask him? Try to cast a spell, and ask him? Are you sure we’re going down the right path?
• Tads – do you follow any kind of religion, “I watch a bit of Netflix…” clan structure, your elder imagine if someone could take your voice away.
• Hunter – can you ask. Tads – it would take 12 hours or so and need some P&Q. Shimazu agrees, Hunter looking for logic. Hunter says ask elk. Tads wants to try first, and doesn’t want to ask the wrong questions,
• Kai, Nadia – why can’t we ask your dad. N – because you’ll fuck it up and he’ll find out. Why not just get them a place here and give them some money so they can get a job?
• Kai, talk to Shim, tell him to talk to Turul
• Aswon – I don’t get how you’re gonna get the family to come with us anyway. Kai – doctor blag, special scheme
• Tads to Shimazu – I can influence you to not say an ything. Shim, psychology check – bad idea, very hard.
• Aswon – we need to be careful asking germain – shes a fixer, not a charity.
• Go to buy a car. Looking for mechanically sound but not a looker. Go to Achmeds – nothing that matches the criteria.
• Aswon – are we gonna do crime in it, if so we can’t buy it legit. No – it should be the ranch vehicle. Achmeds suggest going to Pritaks,
• Lr2046 pickup 2nd hand, 15k, negotiates to 13k and the paperwork. Different colour doors and bodywork, no datajack or any electronics
• Computer rolls from H and M to get politicians details, find details of “government house”, some reports about demonstrations being broken up by the police.
• Aswon looking for a case for the fancy combat shotgun with dual feeds to present to G.
• Meeting Germaine is Kai and Aswon, Tads astral scouting, rest in the truck doing research.
• Germaine arrives in style, chauffer piloting, pulls up and moors, welcome aboard. Passes over envelope, takes payment. Aswon has something for you.
• “I have something for you, not as pretty. Germaine fires off a burst. But safely. Puts away safely, hugs for A. Where are you now, blurble? Shirvian? Oh yes, down that way. Doing some good, I like people with style. Kai explains about the ranch, is there any game, explain about monkeys, ohh excitement. Is that instead of one of the places I found for you? No. Concrete factory is under consideration, not the theatre.
• Kai checks for diary – non committal. Aswon – are you plugged into the local crime scene, oh darling no. Partial explain, that would be no problem. Aswon “I’ve never been sea fishing” loudly enough as they walk off.
• Tads – dogleg via somewhere then to shirvan, to Rusul house, kids in, mother absent. Checks mob boss – 3 servants cleaning. Then to presidents house – no obvious magical defences, no open windows, push down through wards,
• Ambushed on the way out, mage and 4 spirits, flees to Tashkent, mage manages to close the distance a little, 5m stun soaked to l, flee more to the himalyas, then breaks LOS, then back to Constantinople, then back to body – Hunter spots tads in combat and taken damage.
• Shimazu finds the new hot thing “krillkaf” – 2 for 1.
• Tads – “there is something in the politicians mansion, I wandered in, didn’t set anything off, wandered out, got chased” – works out they were high force watcher spirits.
• About 5:30, Shimazu driving the SUV,
• Aswon “can you fit the chip now, or do you need a workbench or something”. Kai, back to the ranch
• Uneventful journey back to the ranch, Shimazu ok driving unfamiliar vehicle.

Session 88 is up at the usual place

The team finally got their hands on a cyberdeck this week - even if it is only a rating 3 with very low end programs, for the first time it gave them some chance of untraceable searches and low end data steals. As I was doing the writeup, it then occurred to me that we'd never really done any matrix stuff to date, which is probably a shame in a Shadowrun setting - so I decided to try and make sure that some of the crazy sculpted system / metaphor stuff made it into the writeup. So, that added a couple of pages and another 3k words to the normal average for an episode!

As usual, here are the notes, so you can see how they relate to the narrative:

• 7:30pm, just arrived back at the ranch. Masking chip is Computer B/R 3 to fit, 2 hours base time, Sleaze 3 util is Computer 3 check, 1 hour base time.
• Examine contents of envelope – masking chip and optical disk. Passed to Marius to install.
• Get Nadia to check contacts for politician.
• Kai – we don’t have time to do both – we know some about the mafia, but he’s personal, but the contact has asked us and given us a time limit.
• Aswon – the contact said he tripped flags, so he’s probably blagged his boss and has promised results. Both of these are personal targets – one we’ve annoyed, one is to keep a contact safe.
• Kai to Tads – what did you trip? Dunno, don’t think I tripped anything. What attacked you, mage + 4 spirits. Explain watcher spirits to Kai, including long duration watcher
• Hunter to Jules – ok? To burner phone. About 16:30 stockholm time
• Marius – install chip, default to Electronics B/R on 5s – 3 success. 40 minutes for chip, 2 success on sleaze util, 30 minutes.
• Discussion amongst rest of team about how to deal with magic threat – Shimazu and Aswon on spirits, Tads banishing
• What firepower have we got – some LAWs, some RPGs – but both slow firing. Sniper rifle is the heaviest weapon, even with standard ammo. But it’s LOUD. And only 5 shots till reload. Hunter – grenade launcher and assault rifle, Shimazu nasty with sword, Marius – drone with twin AR and bins of ammo. Tads – described abilities – fear/confusion/
• Kai to T – if you were that mage, would you be on high alert – yes. What would you be doing? Hey, bodyguard. Shimazu rolls – response time for summon and response, then heighten alert.
• Tads – his main focus was spirits I think, to be that good. Discussion about power levels, Tads won’t dominate a combat – but no worse than that.
• Kai – what are the drones like. M – surveillance, great hang time, solar power, but only sensors 1. Can you send it from here – no, not really, need to be in the same town. We could control it from here, but with massive flux, easily findable.
• Tads – can we use a laser designator thing from the trid – Marius, no, not that good yet.
• Hunter, we have half the gear – we can paint the target.
• Kai – what defences does he have. Marius – must have a cop or a bodyguard or something, he’s a well known politician. He may have hired muscle if he’s paranoid. It sounds risky to get into his place, taking his car out on the move is massive chance of collateral damage – I like the sniper perch idea.
• Can we check if he has public engagements. Once we have the deck going
• Kais plan – shoot the politician, head explodes like a melon. Minutes before info goes to the police, that Mammadova has been offed. Police then kill the Mafia guy in retribution. Others – no, the Mafia pays better, they probably work for him, not the politician.
• Marius – distraction, explosion, draw the police off, then hit the politician
• Kai – how about that but trid phantasm of the drone as a police chopper to drill him
• NO! we want to do mamamdova in his house so we can rob him! Chorus from Aswon and Hunter
• Tads – I can levitate and make Aswon invisible, and probably mask it – how stable is it. Wind spirit to help/emergency parachute,
• Kai and team work out the maths to sniper over the walls, working out response times
• How high can we go with the levitate – effectively unlimited.
• Shimazu – Aswon, can you mask your spells – yes, but deliberate, but probably not a factor
• Kai – can we send the drone instead, levitated to avoid using fuel – ARs don’t have the range, accuracy or penetrating power.
• Kai to Shimazu – stealth ninja. Any probs with that – no. Ok, says Kai. Working out if sword will count as magically active. No. Car might be warded – after all, ours is.
• Marius – does he drive slowly over any manhole covers?
• Use Ulvis phone to call the politician – we don’t know the relationship
• Kai, underworld politics – use Ulvi phone to throw a phone over the wall and get mammadova into a certain place at a certain time. Then attack him. Kai explains to Aswon.
• Shimazu – do Mammadova first, get the politicians number from Mammadova,
• How many telecoms companies are there Nadia – just 1, state monopoly, hack the phone network
• Tads – mild concern over the order of attack. If we use the phones to lure the politician, we have to do the mafia quickly otherwise they will be tracked. Aswon – if we use the mafia phone on the hit, it will get investigated, lead back to the local town mafia hits, and near the ranch. Suggest using one of the Iranian phones. Government monitored – could cause fun.
• Marius plan to drive to sniper spot, levitate up, take the shot, levitate down, drive away. Kai – can the drone drop the device. Would have to fabricate a hook. Aswon – drones, not common around her, would arouse suspicion.
• Fast forward to after deck is ready. Hunter takes 40 mins to run the phone company. Message from Jules “not really, bosses getting angsty, please tell me good news” – Hunter responds yes.
• Marius asked Hunter to check for public appearances, to work out when he might be leaving. Successful run, find he is WFH tomorrow, feeling of being watched on the way out.
• Marius preps the vehicle for combat.
• Kai – starts to plan whole thing about megacorps – other team members shoot him down. KISS. Simple message “my father needs to speak to you over the next few days, Ulvi.” Put on the burner phone. Pop the politician. Then send messages from Ulvis cousins saying hes gone mental, threatening to kill the politician.
• Get to Shirvan around 23:15. Kai disguises as a local. Get phone and wrap in local rubbish, sterilise. Krill-caf cups from the rubbish bin in the back of the truck. Tads got 7 success on the sterilise. Aswons bullets are in the sterilise as well. Tads summon wind spirit from the roof of the truck – F4, 4 services. Summons 6 X F4 watchers with 1-3 hours. Then wait 15 mins for stun to wear off. 750m from the mammadova house to the politicians.
• Text from Ulvi phone “My father wants to talk to you. I’m throwing a phone over the SE corner of your yard in 5 minutes so you can speak securely later. Ulvi Mammadova.” Kai wearing doctors clothes then disguise over the top.
• Get halfway from M to A, drop Kai off, head back to launch site. Tads levitates Aswon with F1 and 3 successes. Spirit set to guard Aswon.
• Kai stealth check – 4. Aswon straight up. Kai gets to position, sends message. Gets “ok” as he gets into street. Kai throws over ok, low arc. Perception check – spots the tripwire over the wall.
• Aswon spots the phone coming over. Kai texts “package delivered” . Two figures come out of the house, bodyguard to centre, politician goes for phone.
• Aswon shooting – long range, wind, night, zoom 3, thermo – 6s. 8 successes. Vaapourised. Kai hears the shot impact. Kai – take the bodyguard out. Expensive. But ok. Take the 2nd shot, on 8s , 16D, bodyguard gets 2 success! Takes an S and goes down hard. Arm gone – entirely.
• Tads brings Aswon down. Kai heading to the RV. Hears the med alarm going off.
• Enemy mage on scene, perceives Aswon and spirit, moves to attack.
• Tads 5, Aswon 17, Mage sends spirit to attack, rags at Aswon. Enemy mage casts blind on Aswon, shielding stops it. Tads sends watchers to attack the spirit. Aswon perception check in normal, nothing. Shimazu looking out of turret in astral, spots the mage. Hunter grabs Aswons spears. Aswon 150m up, still descending. Mage manabolts one of tads watchers – dead. Enemy spirit batters another watcher. Kai still walking. Tads dispels, then recasts, now 10m from the ground, decelerates to 1m above the truck, spear passed up. Mage tries to assense aswon – 1 X 15, nothing else.
• Marius pulls away smoothly, Tads still on the roof – trying to banish the spirit, Mage blasts Tads with a spell, manabolt bounces off shielding, Tads passes spear to Aswon, he stabs at enemy spirit, 9S damage, Tads spirit finishes it off. Was a wind spirit, summoned by a wind mage
• Everyone back in the vehicle, Tads assenses enemy mage, gets 6 success.
• Tads goes astral to attack the mage, gets lots of success, 7d, no success, takes deadly stun, takes a point of magic loss. Tads back in body in truck is ok. Truck is heading “around”, staying in the area, change shape and colour, and loop to collect Kai.

One thing worth mentioning, is that after Aswon went for a sudden fall and ended up only 1m away from pancaking into the truck, I had him roll a willpower check - which didn't go so well for him. At some point in the near future, his newly developed fear of heights / falling or mild vertigo flaw is probably going to come to the fore.

Smuggler Session 089 - latest writeup can now be found at the following location: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56914515998964/

A small writeup this week - combat of course takes some time, and as there was a "hidden" opponent that suddenly threw them off axis, it slowed down a bit more. Still, we got all done, and the team are now away with the bad guy and have some interesting questions for him.

Notes from this weeks session:

1. Head to the west of the nice area, send tads scouting mammadovas place, dogleg via baku,
2. Scout the house- mammadova, servants and egon up watching tv
3. Report back, Hunter checks tv – has hit the news, reporter outside, no actual facts
4. Kai – we should use one of the suns phones, send a message to dad, one of the other brothers has gone mad and killed the politician.
5. No – that sends him into the car, all kinds of tricks, and we can’t rob him
6. And the garage is the most secure place (a)
7. Do we have rubber bullets (m)
8. We do have kai and his voice control (A)
9. We have to try and sneak into the house (t)
10. Shimazyu – traceless walk and lockpicking. A – until you hit an electronic lock.
11. Aswon – kick in the front door, voice to calm them all down.
12. Marius – as above, get on the ground, zip tie, save the servants,
13. Aswon – we can’t do the influence then, he’ll remember
14. Shimazu – can we make him terrified instead, and intimidate him.
15. Do we need him conscious to steal his stuff, or just his body(T) depends if he has voice passwords (a)
16. Aswon – we cant get in without getting spotted, probably. Wants the loud and violent attack again.
17. Tads – they’ll recognise us as well
18. Hunter – we have matching burkas or shemaghs
19. Kai – we don’t want to be in the house, as the cops might come
20. Aswon – like sending the phone message to prep them, short, sharp,
21. Kai to front door, facial sculpt, give the password, escort him to “safety”
22. Shimazu fail psychology. Nadia confirms that they may need something from his house to authorise bank transfers
23. Aswon – Marius, can you tune the jammer, to cut off the phone but leave the trid.
24. Tads – do they have the signal at the mo – confirmed phones are up.
25. Marius – checks he could jam – about 50/50 as the phone may be used as a remote or something
26. Aswon – can we use watchers to spook them? Kai checks – if we jam the phone, if he has med-alert that will go off.
27. H+M spot a window twitcher.
28. Tads goes back, assenses new person, gets good read on Egon
29. Team drive off – Kai, not assaulting, we need to force him out. Send a message,
30. Aswon – Ulvi has been set up for the death of the politician, much better plan
31. Shimazu – go with the Marius plan, ram raid the living room. Marius confirms – will cut through the house. Tads, can put a trid phantasm over the house to hide the ram raid.
32. Marius pulls over, sends the drone over to scan the house, with the condor – house entirely of normal construction as far as he can tell (8 and 9 on sensor enhanced perception)
33. Hunter – police procedures – give them an easy forensics – fire an RPG to cover the truck hole, it will make it more difficult to investigate.
34. Tads lays out a blanket, team, pile stuff on to sterilise. Still sending message to lay additional red herrings, “we think Ulvi was involved in the hit, they’re coming for you!”
35. Checl the building won’t collapse if they ram it, won’t hit the couch in the main room.
36. Team spotted by more curtain twitchers
37. Nadia already curling up in a bunk and covering in flak vests.
38. Everyone else clips in, 5 point harness. Shimazu and Tads swop seats. Aswon going in the back and in a bunk too. Marius goes, to full speed.
39. Marius on 3s, declares a reroll, 9 successes on the handling / ram. Good ram, both sets of front doors through roof collapses on the hatch, tads casts trid phantasm around the back of the truck to make it look normal, weewaah noises to cover the crash
40. Through the wall, rolling for initiative, one of the servants crushed under the truck. Marius detects run over one, wry smile.
41. Team unbuckling, Mammadova rolling, 2 servants fleeing
42. Hunter out left side, dusty, pistol in hand . Shimazu, front left, sword and taser, Aswon climb out over kai, drop prone. Tads goes back to normal seat
43. Mammadova spots Aswon, shoots, misses, shoots, hit – 9m -2 for couch, soaked
44. Hunter move round to cover the sofa
45. Shimazu sneaks towards the sofa, keeping low
46. Aswon covers couach the other way
47. Egon shoots at Hunter, FA, hits for 16S, soaked to an L
48. New combat, round – Shimazu charges Egon, 11 vs 6 success, does 9d, -armour, 4d = soaked (with reroll)
49. Aswon – stands, spots Mama, shouts “don’t” . Mammadova. Marius observes through condor – 2 neighbours out. Hunter gets up and shoots Egon, 9S – soaked.
50. Tads soak 4L as Nadia scrambles over her – soaked.
51. Egon attacks Shimazu, no dodge, 16D, -5 armour, gets 2 with a reroll, buys 2, takes an M, free hit back, 10 successes 12 D, soaks to an M. Shimazu knocked down and back
52. Kai – shouts freeze in English with commanding voice (1 net), then tasers, 2 hits, gets one on the soak, buys 1 to take an S, takes another 12D, down he goes.
53. Tads sends watcher spirits to “distract” people in watching houses – adds “don’t be seen” too late
54. Shimazu shoots Egon with Taser on 9s, miss, second shot, one success, 10S, soaks 7S, gets 2 takes M
55. Aswon snipes Egon, on 8s, Egon down with hole in his head
56. Hunter gets credstick, phone and MP+ammo from Egon.
57. Aswon gets keys from mammadova, goes for the car, sees thumbprint reader, throws them away. Shimazu goes to truck, Aswon loads Mammadova. Tads puts goggles and respirator on.
58. Marius handling on 4s to back out, roof collapses as they reverse, drops the condor for recovery.
59. Hunter fires the rpg, takes out the door, good accurate shot. Tads reshapes the spell to construction vehicle
60. Shimazu self biotechs drops to an L
61. Truck heads south to wildlands.

We're due to play tomorrow night, and I expect a bit of time spend questioning Mammadova and trying to steal his money - I'm working on the following basis:
He has 1D6X1000 + 10K in his personal account - the players can just get that transferred over with a thumbprint from him.
Mammadova construction has 3D6 X 1000 +10K in their 'cash' accounts - they can get at that with a bit more risk - it might flag up to the TCL version of the tax man / IRS for a large transfer
The 'slush fund' for the Mafia - the money that Mammadova funnels up to his boss, the Don of the TCL - that has 4D6 X 10K+20K - but taking that *will* piss off the Mafia for the entire TCL and start a manhunt and major investigation. Up to them...

After that, I'm doing a karma award and so next week is likely to be a bit short as well - but that isn't a bad thing for me, as it's the first live role play event this coming weekend, so I'll be in a field doing LARP photography for 4 days, and then processing a couple of thousand images - so not very much time for doing writeups.

However, I have plans for the week to come - I have a Dutch friend from my World of Warcraft guild that will be Skyping in, being a weapons dealer asking them for a delivery mission - taking experimental new ammo into Russia up towards the front with awakened Siberia...

Session 090 - Risk vs Reward, can now be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56944788208964/

No game last week as one of the players couldn't make it due to RL stuff, and I have a guest NPC dialling in to give them the next mission, so I didn't want anyone to miss that. It was also the day after "the moot", our first big live role play event of the year, so I figured a bit of a rest was probably good, and it gave me a chance to start publishing some of the photos I took at the event, which always chews up days of my life.

I'd planned out three tiers of money they could go for, with increasing levels of risk to each one, once they started on Mammadova. In the end they went for the second lot of money - taking Mammadova's personal cash and the business money, but staying away from the Mafia pot. So, somewhat wise, I think.
We also got to a good natural break point, and so we had a Karma award, with all of the team getting 10+ Karma to spend, and having a week for training times / learning skills / doing astral quests.

Here are the notes:

• 10 miles south of shirvan, in a defile, jammer is on, own comms and sat link allowed. Aswon goes to ridgeline to keep watch.
• Tads – influence on unconscious Mammadova, effective WP2 = 12 successes. “Be scared of the team and comply”. Drained ok. Kai lays out medical tools in a “threatening” fashion. Still in the back of the truck. Mammadova tied up, in the back of the truck.
• Nadia to check the phone – check contacts. Marius helps.
• Shimazu psychologty – 2+1, reroll, double 1…. Nadia makes a test, 2 5s, no – don’t paint him funny colours. It’s leech time! Tads – if he was floating in the air as well?
• Kai – how about if we play it as the rescue squad? Marius – just Kai in the back, he can buy his way out of this? Pretend to be his friend.
• Nadia psychology – use the leech. Hunter agrees, it’s not his kind of threat, and he can’t find a way to combat it.
• Kai – put the leech on him, tell him he can buy his way out. Tads casts levitate on him – 6 successes.
• Biotech on hunter, drops M to an L, Tads heals Shimazu, then heals Hunter. Get the jar of leeches and the tongs.
• On the phone – messages both ways to politicians, discussion back and forth, including mention of payments.
• Tads, assenses, compares his head to Hunters, some overlap. Kai – biotech, best ways to kill him without destroying the value.
• Test to wake him up. Kai fails, Shimazu succeeds – ice cubes to the back of the neck
• Hello Mr Mammadova
• Who the hell are you
• I’m your captor
• Spits in face.
• Well that’s one of your 3 questions. You can buy questions back by saying sorry
• Youll get nothing from me! Psychology from Shimazu – he’s rattled
• We were sent to stop your son killing the politicians. What’s ulvi done? Why would he do that
• He wanted the power. No Ulvi would never do that. Well, he did.
• Do you want to ask a question. What do you want? We want to get paid.
• You want money? You’re mercenaries.
• Some of the people in your house were in on it – that’s why we had to get you out. Do you have somewhere else to go. We did intel on your son.
• *gets messages from Ulvi to Mammadova*
• So, what do you want? Money. How much is your life worth.
• So what you do you want? Money
• Where can we go – can you do this remotely? No, need to go to the bank, Construction company
• No, company is not safe. Discussion about cash vs cert. Tell him the police will be after him.
• Roll -3 = I have 13k I can get out from a cash point.
• Fakes talking to the boss? Shimazu unscrews jar, Kai “I don’t know what these do”
• Now realises he’s levitated. Leech suspended
• 3d6=16, 26k in company account. Kai “please hold still, they’re very expensive”
• Kai 30K, talks in mandarin, pause, the boss says there’s 30k in this van, you need to do better than this.
• Intimidate – Kai gets a 20, Mamadova gets to 11s
• I can get you 100k from my bosses account, but he WILL hunt you down. Shimazu get a 14 on psychology – telling the truth.
• Kai – 2 of the brothers were good, can they get you somewhere safe.
• Mammadova appears to be telling the truth to Nadia, obviously confused and disturbed by the lack of respect from his minions.
• Working out how the cred transfer can be done.
• They find out his boss is “Gregoi Peggario”
• Kai planning to get 13+30k, ignore the 100k
• Nadia – banking roll, go to the next town, less risk. Put the leeches away “Mr Hat”
• Kai ask Marius for flashing Doodad to tell him it’s a signal detector. Go to the bank, then he gets to make 1 call, then the team will take him to safety.
• 160km south to Lankaran, they remember the bank there.
• Blindfold him and attach the doodad, tell him not to call. Aswon returns, on the road south.
• Uneventful journey to lankaran, about 2 hours, arrive about 4am. Tell M that he’s going to one of the safe houses in Hajgabul. Hunter watches the news feed. Still no details, but something important. Texts Jules “all good?”
• Team rests / watches, waits for 9:15, Kai in disguise, drop the levitate, into the bank
• Transfers over 13+26K, turns and leaves, you take me to the safe house now, yes? Yes, that’s right, Back in the truck, half way back, taser him, back up into the hills. Transfer 20k into their legit bank, keep 19k on the stick. About 10:30, pull over to the side of the road and bag him out. Bury him by the roadside. Shimazu takes a slice of buttock for the leeches, for immediate use.
• Tads tries talismongering – arable land all chemically treated, maybe some minerals deep enough. Tads asked to do sterilise on the body as they bury
• Hunter thinking, asks about destroying the cyberware, in case they are recorded. Burns out ok. Eye catches fire for a moment.
• Back to the ranch ok for just after lunchtime. News how has more details. Jules texts back “all good ” can you talk, no, call me later
• Brief rest, then text the two coppers in the local town. Hello. Hello? Just been past Shirvan, what is going on? Professional hit, mafia boss is gone, is he related, yes.
• Kai – now we need to fix Vusuls family. Marius – we should take the other truck.
• Tads – I don’t know what to do.
• Kai – you’re concentrating on getting them a better life. Tads – yes!
• Nadia – against getting her family involved, because Shimazu can’t lie for shit.
• Kai – let’s stop, and take a step back, and work out what we need to do.
• Tads – elk is a protector, we stunned them then murdered them. The kid was young, probably early on the path
• Aswon –I have a horrible feeling you need to fess up, to them. But if we get them new lives, putting ourselves out, that gets us back to an honourable path, even if we don’t tell them why.
• Tads – we need to get them better choices / chances
• Kai – I think you missed a step.
• Shimazu – I wouldn’t accept money / go with strangers that killed my kid
• Nadia – Islamic culture, repraration, suggests to bring them to the ranch to work – just pay for them while the ranch gets back on their feet. Tads – getting better matrix connection, the kids can get schooling.
• Ask Rusudan if they can employ them – too poor at the moment, Kai – we have a VIP coming would a 19k downpayment cover it. Blinks, ok.
• Who is going to Shirvan – Shimazu, suggests not taking Hunter- too scary, Tads asks Nadia if she will go. Kai to go to provide patriachral support. Tads, Kai, Nadia and Shimazu go in the 4X4, astral scout to confirm they are present. Take kit bags, Kai gets a 6 on his translation, take them back to the ranch
• Back to the ranch and given chance to have a breather, family takes care of them and bathes them.

No write up yet - but just finished our weekly Smuggler session, in which I had one of the guys from my World of Warcraft guild, "Ebon Flame", connect via discord at the start of our session.

He took on the role of a Dutch national, international arms dealer and smuggler, and gave them their next mission. There was live negotiations over price, frantic whispering away from the microphone, and wanting to know details of the job and the cargo - and the players wondering (all except Tads/Ali who knows him) who it was, and what RP buttons they could push. In the end they negotiated a small increase in pay and goodies from the mission, and agreed to take the job.

Yay for live dial in NPCs and making the players actually RP with people that aren't the GM doing a funny voice!

Here was the briefing document I prepared for the RL Patrick.

• You are: Patrick Van De Baas, currently based out of Rotterdam. You are a 62 year old, dwarven male – you used to serve in the Dutch armed forces until you “expressed”(turned into a dwarf) in 2011 and were dismissed from service (as nobody understood what was happening with elf / dwarf mutation then).
• How you got in touch: You have a mutual friend - Saito Hinata, who recommended a guy called “Shimazu”. Saito has worked for you before, and is in a bad situation at the moment, so really needs his “fixer fee” for setting this one up. Your contact on the team is a bodyguard by the name of “Shimazu” that Saito speaks very highly of. He tells you that he is very loyal, discreet and has a great deal of personnel honour – if he takes the job, he will do his best.
• What you do: International arms dealer and smuggler. You are a legitimate dealer in weapons, ammo, military equipment and certain combat drugs, licenced to broker deals providing import/export laws are met. You also work in the shadows, buying and selling illegally, if the price is right.
• What you want: A team to meet a boat at the Ukraine port of Sochi on the east coast of the Black Sea, to the Russian town of Samara, about 1300km to the North-north-west, delivering them to Brigadier Vasiliy Cherkenov at his Forward Deployment Base.
• What you know: He is the commander of the Russian forces in Samara and has a division just coming out of repair and refit, getting ready to push on Yakult – a breakaway republic in Siberia. He wants an edge for his troops against the freaks and weird critters they will be facing. He has ordered some special ammunition to help him with this, which is what the team needs to move.
• What they need to move: The ammo / rounds are contained in 8 cargo containers, each one .5 X .5 X 1m, standard military crates that weigh about 150kg each
• What you offer: you have a variety of options to offer, and will of course start with a low bid and try to get their services as cheaply as possible.
• Tier 1 rewards – the basic offer. A flat fee of 20,000 Nuyen, and a “chit” or pass, they can trade in with the Brigadier to allow them to purchase at cost price – Fuel for their truck, Basic regular ammo for Pistol/Submachine gun, Rifle, Shotgun, and 50 calibre rifle/machine gun.
• Tier 2 rewards – if they sound too upset with tier 1, and are negotiating with you – an expanded “chit” to allow purchase of Tracer ammo, Flechette ammo for Pistols/SMG, Extra-explosive ammo for Shotguns, and Anti-personnel grenades
• Tier 3 rewards – if they negotiate well will you, seem friendly, or can justify the costs, you will expand the chit to allow purchase of up to 100 rounds of pistol/smg “APDS” ammo – armour piercing discarding sabot, and up to 100 rounds for rifles as well. They should bite your hand off for this.
• Tier 4 rewards – if they REALLY really impress you, come up with a sob story that makes you cry, or laugh uncontrollably, then you will offer the final chit, which allows them to purchase 50 rounds of Tungsten/Uranium anti-vehicle rounds for a heavy machine gun, along with an “NSV 12.7 X 108mm heavy machine gun on a tripod mount, and up to 5 “RPG-30” 105mm anti-tank guided missiles.
• If on the other hand, they annoy you, are very disrespectful, or give you a massive hard time – tell them you will find another team. Don’t let them threaten you too much, or take the piss – you have the jobs, they are still a new team, and you have alternatives to hire.
• What is really going on: You are doing a very dodgy deal here – these are weapons banned by all sorts of international treaties on biological warface. You are not planning on betraying the team however, or doublecrossing them – this is a straight up job. But you can’t offer any help on the journey, travel ID or passes – because of the type of cargo. You *can’t* have your name associated with this job.

A little history
In January 2031, Russia invaded Poland, starting the first “Eurowar”. You were just setting up business, and made healthy profits sending arms to the front lines. By April, Poland had been defeated, and Russia consolidated power. In July, they moved again, into the Czech Republic. Austria comes to the aid of the Czech Republic, and you begin sales of weapons to both countries. The war grinds on for months, with cities and populations being devastated.
November 2032 sees Russia pushing into Germany, looping around Berlin. You were in Berlin at the time, arranging a shipment of arms and very nearly found yourself cut off and captured. The Russians were distracted by troops from the UK landing in Flanders and the Netherlands, forcing them to redeploy and allowing your escape by sea.
January 2033 sees the combined Austrian / Czech forces starting an offensive on the Russians. Towards the end of the month, Swedish airspace monitors detect flights of aircraft they cannot conclusively identify flying across northern Europe. The phantom aircraft destroy key command and control centers for forces on both sides of the Euro War while unidentified commandos kill key military commanders and crash their Matrix networks. The United Kingdom denies any involvement in the affair in the wake of rumors that the aircraft were FA-38 Nightwraiths and the commandos were SAS. Russia and the European Alliance announce a cease-fire, effectively ending the EuroWar
In early 2036 Eurowar II starts, with the ‘Alliance for Allah’ moving to return much of Iberia / Spain to the control of the Moors. They also launch an assault via Syria and Turkey, heading through Greece and opening a second front. By November the European alliance has pushed them back out of Europe in a series of bloody battles.
In early 2037 the Alliance for Allah starts using chemical weapons and terror attacks on the Euro armies, slowing their advance into Muslim territory and starting to push back towards Europe. In Ausust, Mullah Sayid Jazrir is assassinated in Istanbul, ending the second Eurowar.
Europe continues to balkanize, with small splinter states breaking off from larger nations, fragmenting their power. Corporations continue to grow stronger every year and supplant them as the serious contenders.
Global strife erupts – racism, specism, religious wars – the market for arms and armour explodes, as groups find the only way to enforce their will is at the end of a gun barrel. And through it all, you’ve prospered – selling to both sides, supporting neither. You dance on the edge of the blade, making sure you don’t fall off either side. To care is to commit your support to one faction or another. So you shut off the world – it’s all business now, just a means to an end.

Session 091 is now published, found at : https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56961823538964/

Well! Fun and games this week.

First of all, all the character sheets got updated on my electronic version, converted to the latest version of my SR3 character template and resaved - so I've printed them as PDFs and have linked them in Dropbox too. The new links are shown on the first post, so people can have a look and compare against the originals if they want. I'm going to have to chat with Fozzy / Kai and get him to spend some Karma I think....

The second thing I did this week was to get a friend to call in on Discord. Patrick is a buddy from my World of Warcraft guild (not that I play WoW any more, but we keep in touch). He was briefed as a friend of a friend, to give them the next mission.

Here's the brief I wrote for Patrick (as he's not done tabletop much before, and no Shadowrun!)

You are: Patrick Van De Baas, currently based out of Rotterdam. You are a 62 year old, dwarven male – you used to serve in the Dutch armed forces until you “expressed”(turned into a dwarf) in 2011 and were dismissed from service (as nobody understood what was happening with elf / dwarf mutation then).
How you got in touch: You have a mutual friend - Saito Hinata, who recommended a guy called “Shimazu”. Saito has worked for you before, and is in a bad situation at the moment, so really needs his “fixer fee” for setting this one up. Your contact on the team is a bodyguard by the name of “Shimazu” that Saito speaks very highly of. He tells you that he is very loyal, discreet and has a great deal of personnel honour – if he takes the job, he will do his best.
What you do: International arms dealer and smuggler. You are a legitimate dealer in weapons, ammo, military equipment and certain combat drugs, licenced to broker deals providing import/export laws are met. You also work in the shadows, buying and selling illegally, if the price is right.
What you want: A team to meet a boat at the Ukraine port of Sochi on the east coast of the Black Sea, to the Russian town of Samara, about 1300km to the North-north-west, delivering them to Brigadier Vasiliy Cherkenov at his Forward Deployment Base.
What you know: He is the commander of the Russian forces in Samara and has a division just coming out of repair and refit, getting ready to push on Yakult – a breakaway republic in Siberia. He wants an edge for his troops against the freaks and weird critters they will be facing. He has ordered some special ammunition to help him with this, which is what the team needs to move.
What they need to move: The ammo / rounds are contained in 8 cargo containers, each one .5 X .5 X 1m, standard military crates that weigh about 150kg each
What you offer: you have a variety of options to offer, and will of course start with a low bid and try to get their services as cheaply as possible.

• Tier 1 rewards – the basic offer. A flat fee of 20,000 Nuyen, and a “chit” or pass, they can trade in with the Brigadier to allow them to purchase at cost price – Fuel for their truck, Basic regular ammo for Pistol/Submachine gun, Rifle, Shotgun, and 50 calibre rifle/machine gun.
• Tier 2 rewards – if they sound too upset with tier 1, and are negotiating with you – an expanded “chit” to allow purchase of Tracer ammo, Flechette ammo for Pistols/SMG, Extra-explosive ammo for Shotguns, and Anti-personnel grenades
• Tier 3 rewards – if they negotiate well will you, seem friendly, or can justify the costs, you will expand the chit to allow purchase of up to 100 rounds of pistol/smg “APDS” ammo – armour piercing discarding sabot, and up to 100 rounds for rifles as well. They should bite your hand off for this.
• Tier 4 rewards – if they REALLY really impress you, come up with a sob story that makes you cry, or laugh uncontrollably, then you will offer the final chit, which allows them to purchase 50 rounds of Tungsten/Uranium anti-vehicle rounds for a heavy machine gun, along with an “NSV 12.7 X 108mm heavy machine gun on a tripod mount, and up to 5 “RPG-30” 105mm anti-tank guided missiles.

If on the other hand, they annoy you, are very disrespectful, or give you a massive hard time – tell them you will find another team. Don’t let them threaten you too much, or take the piss – you have the jobs, they are still a new team, and you have alternatives to hire.
What is really going on: You are doing a very dodgy deal here – these are weapons banned by all sorts of international treaties on biological warface. You are not planning on betraying the team however, or doublecrossing them – this is a straight up job. But you can’t offer any help on the journey, travel ID or passes – because of the type of cargo. You *can’t* have your name associated with this job.
A little history
In January 2031, Russia invaded Poland, starting the first “Eurowar”. You were just setting up business, and made healthy profits sending arms to the front lines. By April, Poland had been defeated, and Russia consolidated power. In July, they moved again, into the Czech Republic. Austria comes to the aid of the Czech Republic, and you begin sales of weapons to both countries. The war grinds on for months, with cities and populations being devastated.
November 2032 sees Russia pushing into Germany, looping around Berlin. You were in Berlin at the time, arranging a shipment of arms and very nearly found yourself cut off and captured. The Russians were distracted by troops from the UK landing in Flanders and the Netherlands, forcing them to redeploy and allowing your escape by sea.
January 2033 sees the combined Austrian / Czech forces starting an offensive on the Russians. Towards the end of the month, Swedish airspace monitors detect flights of aircraft they cannot conclusively identify flying across northern Europe. The phantom aircraft destroy key command and control centers for forces on both sides of the Euro War while unidentified commandos kill key military commanders and crash their Matrix networks. The United Kingdom denies any involvement in the affair in the wake of rumors that the aircraft were FA-38 Nightwraiths and the commandos were SAS. Russia and the European Alliance announce a cease-fire, effectively ending the EuroWar
In early 2036 Eurowar II starts, with the ‘Alliance for Allah’ moving to return much of Iberia / Spain to the control of the Moors. They also launch an assault via Syria and Turkey, heading through Greece and opening a second front. By November the European alliance has pushed them back out of Europe in a series of bloody battles.
In early 2037 the Alliance for Allah starts using chemical weapons and terror attacks on the Euro armies, slowing their advance into Muslim territory and starting to push back towards Europe. In Ausust, Mullah Sayid Jazrir is assassinated in Istanbul, ending the second Eurowar.
Europe continues to balkanize, with small splinter states breaking off from larger nations, fragmenting their power. Corporations continue to grow stronger every year and supplant them as the serious contenders.
Global strife erupts – racism, specism, religious wars – the market for arms and armour explodes, as groups find the only way to enforce their will is at the end of a gun barrel. And through it all, you’ve prospered – selling to both sides, supporting neither. You dance on the edge of the blade, making sure you don’t fall off either side. To care is to commit your support to one faction or another. So you shut off the world – it’s all business now, just a means to an end.

So - Patrick calls in, asks to speak to Shimazu, and the table goes deathly quiet. Part of that is the players being good and acknowledging that the guy on the other end is listening through a laptop microphone and won't be able to hear much - but also, as I'd hoped, they're aware that this is a live person - which makes them unpredictable and they have no idea on the brief. They listen, there's whispered conversations around the table, there's some haggling, and eventually they strike a deal.

Lessons learnt from this - it was hard for Patrick to hear, so I'm going to look at buying an omni-directional microphone to put in the middle of the table for next time. But I think it worked really well as a thing!

So, after they got off the call with Patrick, there was planning and preparing for the journey to Sochi.

These are the details of the training times for the week of downtime and the astral quest:

• Plans – Tads, spell learning, lodge in truck, talk to totem, anti-tracking – at least a week to get progress
• Day 1 - 4 hours – finish learning create water. 8 hours to create a F1 lodge in the front of the truck. Failed WP test, tired for next day. Goes on astral quest to see totem, find out what she did wrong / has she made amends.
• Day 2 – Astral quest to visit totem, show what has done, F1 quest but takes a D in place of battle, soaked to S. Comes out seriously stunned, seriously wounded. Biotech to M, rests for 3 hours to drain stun, then self heal, two successes, drops to an L.
• Day 3 – lodge in the cab
• Day 4 – R1 quest, obscure trail, succeeds, come back with 2X light wounds, check with tribe they have not been looking for her. Finds wolf tribe after a few hours looking – they’ve not been after her either. Gathers “earth” material to do research on shape earth.
• Day 5 – learn inc reflexes, takes 2 hours, then bond sustaining foci. Call Aslick, ask for enchanting materials –
• Day 6+7, “talismongers” for art materials for spell formula, gathers 8 force points worth
• Aswon – Initiate and learn warding specialist, improve polearms – no successes on learning test, spears 6 = specialisation, 3 karma, base time 21 days, X1.5 for no success=30 days, = 120 hours. Reduces training time by 49 hours during the week.
• Hunter – training – thrown, Chinese, computer 4>5, Pistol 3>4, Rifles 5>6
• Training thrown 1>2, 2 karma=14 days, 1 success, max 6 hours per day, 56 hours = 42 hours in the week, 14 hours remaining. Chinese 1>2, 15 days = 60 hours, passed learning, 60 hours remaining
• Computer 4>5 = 6 karma, 42 days = 168 hours, 1 success, 168 hours remaining
• Pistol 3>4 = 5 karma = 35 days = 150 hours, 1 success on learning, 150 hours remaining
• Rifles 5>6 = 8 karma = 56 days = 224 hours, 1 success on learning, 224 hours remaining
• Kai – Pistols 2>3, looking at politics, arrange germaines holiday, settle family, get the business better
• Pistols 2>3=4 karma, 28 days, no successes, 42 days = 168 hours. 49 hours of training complete.
• Shimazu – Initiate 4>5, Improved ability (edged), look into learning Psychometry
• Marius – learning mandarin 0>1>2, vehicle stealth 4>5
• Mandarin 0>1, 4 hours, 1karma. 1>2=2 karma = 30 days, 1 success = 120 hours, max 6 hours per day = 42 hours done.
• Vehicle stealth 4>5=2 karma=14 days, 1 success, 56 hours, 42 hours done.
• Nadia – truck B/R 2>3, bugs and surveillance 1>2, SMG 2>3
• Truck B/R=4 karma=28 days, 1 success, 112 hours, max 6/day -42 hours = 70 hours left

And these are the notes from the game session to made the narrative:

• Aswon - check over the wounds on tads - also living a magical lifestyle/ warding the house
• have the meet on the phone - working the logistics out, distance, cost of fuel
• Kai - smuggling routes, gets some details, border procedures - double 1. Smuggling - ammo, likely - to buy them some slack delivering to the military
• Kai - quick team check - is anyone wanted in russia? No - team all good. Just avoid Iran. Good - has anyone got contacts? Marius - I have 2 good friends in Sochi. Tads - how did your quest go?
• Tads gives summary, hints at mind probe
• Aswon - can we pair that with alter memmory
• Kai - how long to get to Sochi - Marius, about 2 days. Aswon - lets go with 3
• Check docket - Ship docks in 7 days, don't want to wait there.
• Plan to train for another 4 days to use up the time
• Marius - training and prep the truck for 3k journey, download military patterns
• Tads - I can go look, to get a description. Nadia does hacking run, gets the patterns.
• Kai - calls Germaine - we're going north. Where, north is a broad term, Sochi, going up the silk road, sort of, crossing it. Novogorod - Germaine has a dealer that might want to ship something down, if they want to call in on the way back (Ludmilla?)-
• Marius calls Georgi in Tbilisi - Hola, learning spanish, I can ask for a cigar now, get the important stuff down first. Want anything moving north, not really, keeping a low profile. Have you seen Anatoliy - he's around, but not in his normal haunts, Marius tries Anatoliyu, no answer still. Marius calls Sochi - both go to VM, no message left
• Aswon calls Mr Hu, steaming mug of hot chocolate, just before bed - brief description of journey - do you need anythign there, no, not unless you come to china.
• ASwon calls spook in HK, offers to move people, asks for photos or e-keys for paper stamps. ASwon explains he wants to keep her sweet, for hiring skills,
• Kai finishes training in pistols
• Marius - calls Risa - is the line secure, I heard you were off the scene, the scaly man thinks so, want to keep it that way. We're heading your way, do you want anything moving. Depends, how much do you want to get involved. We want to move thermobaric rounds into strong points, Ahh. more a rep for moving stuff. Shooting back? How rude, WEe're in azerbaijan. Do you have access to the coast, yes, we're neear baku, oh, east coast, not west. She is trying to set up a new pipeline, through odessa.
• Aswon buys talismongering supplies for wards for the house, 3 karma awarded, puts up F5 perm ward on the ranch
• Tads - discussing making magical stuff for Shimazu, maybe 60 days
• Kai - keeping up with the coppers in the local town
• Hunter - thrown, then Pistol. Told Jules about the Iranian phone and the TCL Don.
• Tads and Shimazu discuss making a magic weapon.
• Marius calls Alex again , gets through, who is this, your little brother. Usual explanation, we're in a crew who moves things, we're in sochi, picking up from the docks to go to the interior, permit fees, 500-1000, pay respect, can we pay in advance, anythign for my little brother, we have a 6X6, crew of 7, we can move up to a tonne or two, not too bulky, no unwilling people, 500 will probably be enough, 1k will make the boss happy, Marius sends 1k, marius chit chat - they both went down for 6 months for their boss, got out from the minor charge, Marius gives them a thumbnail on the team.
• Gets to 4/3/60, news has been coming in about the special election, 5 candidates, 2 serious ones, one left wing, one right wing.
• Shimazu - assenses "everything" but particularly the leeches, gets lots of info on them - the analgesic might be good for treating the awakened. Show the windmill talismonger the gem - nothing special really, though it would work as a material. Shimazu asking about Psychometry - read aura's. He offers to put Shimazu in touch with someone - not cheap, but good. *** to do ***
• Kai checking on the family - working hard to fit in, mother confused, but not looking a gift horse in the mouth. Tell Rusudan they can advertise discreet magical protections, and also to get a better matrix connection
• Aswon rig up some webbing over the bunks to stop rolling out.
• Tads buys a bunch of forumla from the talismonger - dirty pants analogy
• Route - 400km to tbilisi, another 200 to north of batumi, 300km north to sorchi over border, apply online for visa using the new IDs from Milo, checks ok, Need 2k in cyber-permits for Marius and Hunter, 200Nuyen per person, 3400 in total.
• Hunter, computer check 1 success, reroll 4. Tourist visa, 6 months
• 4 hours wait at the border - plenty of time to hide stuff. Kai negotiates at the border, where you going - Sochi. Get the rest of the way to Sochi, get to a motel and check in. Rusallina hotel - cheap, but family run. Head there.
• Arrive about 2am, tip the hotellier well for the inconvenience

Episode 92 is now up and live, and can be found at : https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...56986345928964/

We were short Tom / Shimazu this week, who had to sit an exam, so he had a very minor part to play and was mostly in the background - but that's ok.
I thought we would have a fairly quick turnaround here - a bit of training time, keeping it low key in the hotel, then on with the job. But no - there was exploring the city, checking all the magic shops, buying drugs on the black market, and then two of the team going off drinking with the Vory. What could possibly go wrong!

The write up is also somewhat delayed by me being at a LARP event for the last 5 days, so I only got in a couple of hours writing very late at night once I'd finished with my photography. I'd hoped to get everything done today on my day off for post event recovery - but the house tripped a breaker for no apparent reason, and the surge took out one of my monitors and a hard drive, so there was shopping time today getting a replacement - and then replacement screws because the monitor wasn't properly VESA compliant. Grr. Still - it's all done now!

• Team start in guest house Rusallina
• Aswon calling Mr Hu (Arms dealer) to see if he's heard of Brigadier Chernikov - Mr Hu is in. How curious, no more than a grand. Margins are tight.
• Brigadier Vasiliy Cherkenov - 38th Motor Rifle Division, long term officer, reputation for caring for his men, remarkably high degree of loyalty. True communist with impeccable credentials and devoted to the "Rodina". Endless energy, and remarkably direct and powerful
• Tads wants to find a magical dealer to sell off 2nd hand formula. Aswon going looking
• Marius training, then going out with Nadia on the piss.
• Kai, Aswon and Hunter looking for hospital / supplies
• Hire a taxi + drivers for the day, looking for talismongers first
• Awful traffic, through gardens, bad routing, cab waiting while they wander to docks
• Walk around marina, spotted that they were being watched, assense - mix of background counts from -2 to +2 around the area
• Harbour is mostly small boats, a couple 20m+
• 6 magic shops, 3 legit. 1 with strong wards - mage. 2 with low wards - shamens
• mage shop first, comes out in a cloak - the other shop would be better if you don't have a "proper" mage. Materials about 20% up on base
• Move to the slightly warded shamanic one - Cat shaman, grooming himself in his hammock, offers 35% base value, slightly better offer for goods in trade, asks for a coffee on the return visit
• second shop - dog shaman, very OTT - "play!" from over the hedge. Aswon makes magic test - spaniel shaman.
• Tads - astral quest to reduce karma cost for ex area mindlink - place of battle, then citadel 2 hours - bish bash bosh. 1 day to learn spell.
• Tourist team go for BBQ lunch in the back streets
• To the hospital - general or private, to the private. Round the back, Kai with doctors outfit. Find the porters having a smoke and a drink - flask put away quickly. Don't worry about the flask, I've already had 3 today. Which way to the pharmacy. Porter brokers detail comes back after 10 mins - 7k. You here for another hour? An hour, 7500 then. Oh. Leave for a bit, Kai - that's not cheap. Down to the other hospital, same approach. Poor quality hospital, flaking. Guy peels off labels to put on other bottles, very fast deal. Buys 2 months warfarin for 2500 Nuyen+100 Nuyen tip, swaps 2 bottles of "bad" stuff for better bottles. Head pharmacist - "Pavel"
• Call from Mr Hu - details about the Brigadier
• Aswon - we might want to think about stuff we can do to make us sound better. Kai - int check, we need to think about the story about how we got the truck. Maybe the defeat of the Chechen rebels?
• After lunch, Nadia and Marius head into town to meet Alex. Steals a car - red one. Drive to the cafe. What have you been up to - tell them everything but no specifics. Body 8 test for the afternoon - one success for Marius and Nadia. Drinking in the afternoon they are "ok". Drinking in the evening - neither make 2nd checks, there is more drinking, going for food, rob the guy, evening fades away into a haze
• Go to hotel and grab tads before she learns the F2 spell, to go to talismongers
• Start with the dog shamans,
• Go to the second shop, few people in there "I'm thirsty", spilt some on himself, ugh, fashion, ok, show me your formula - mindlink, sterilise, increase reflexes, create water, physical mask, influence, vehicle mask, 35% of 10700
• Aswon smiles - teeth, good charisma check. Shaman closes the shop, really interested. "What do you want?" really impressed with the influence spell. Offers 1 unit of raw gold. Can you tell me about enchanting - I can share my URLS.
• Gesture of friendship - can I have your magic fingers - NO. but i'll sell it to you. Force 4 magic fingers - 400.
• Have you heard of leeches - tar pits of Kurdistan. Not more details, suggests going 2 doors up.
• Back to Marius - WP 11 tests for drugs for Nadia (fail) and Marius (fail)
• Cat shaman - Toloya Popov
• examines spear - no idea what it does, asks, can't read the text.
• Goes to mage shop - do you have books on leeches from Kurdistan, one book - 200 Nuyen
• Hunter - gets the taxi driver to take him to the pistol range in the hills - Vasiliy Olva, decent firearms instructor, helps Hunter train for 6 hours, gets 3X training hours as a one off. Hunter pays 500 for the day.
• Thursday - Tads learns spell, Hunter learns pistol, Marius - rolls 3D6 for hours out on the lash, 11 - arrives back at the hotel at 7pm, still pissed, as is Nadia. Roll for "effects" from the night. D6= 6 - red knuckles, D6=6, still drugged, D6=4 = addictive. Hunter just back at 7pm, Marius wrapped in bandages on right hand, still both wankered.

So, I needed to sort out what cocktail of drugs Nadia and Marius have ended up taking, and just what the effects will be.

Smuggler Session 093 is now published and can be found at the usual place

Running late this week - crazy work over the weekend, and still not well. But it's done, and in under the wire - just. A fairly straightforward run this week, dealing with the drunks, down to the docks and a very straight-forward pickup (they're dealing with a professional after all, who has made arrangements). Out of the town, some good work to ensure they're not being followed and then heading north east.

I'd plotted on my map a corridor that is directly across their route that is prone to mana storms - they'll potentially get to investigate this later and try to determine why it's happening. But, for now, they just needed to get through it - and it rolled up as a doozy. However, the truck is massively well defended against magical attack, and with a F10 lodge in the trailer, and a F10 permanent ward on the front - paid for in full and lovingly crafted, they were absolutely safe getting through even a R8 mana storm. Not so much the poor others caught in the storm, but you can't save em all.

At the moment, I have some plans for their arrival in Volgograd tonight - possible run ins with Zeta-Imp-Chem, the company that Hunter is "hunted" by, so possibly some backstory to come out there. Possibly a chance encounter with Momma-Bear from the Ares team they met at the temple. They're heading for the smuggler hangout nearby, and just having some downtime in the city, and might prod the team again about the top-trump card they have. Other than that, the local crime boys might try and steal the cargo - probably not very well, being at the low end of the totem pole. A simple border checkpoint is their only other obstacle, and a nice simple one at that. Otherwise, it's going to be a straight run up to the Russian base to meet the buyer and hand over the cargo, probably a bit of shopping - and then a new mission.

At the base, they're going to come across a number of choppers which might be for sale or offered as reward for missions - a chance to get the team off wheels and into air, which is something Marius has certainly expressed a desire for.

Anyway, here's the notes from the session last week to compare to the narrative:

• Thursday night, 7pm, Marius and Nadia just back from the binge D6= 6 - red knuckles, D6=6, still drugged, D6=4 = addictive. Hunter just back at 7pm, Marius wrapped in bandages on right hand, still both wankered.
• Drug = Nitro, 3 doses consumed, Addiction = 5M/8P, Tolerance 3, Edge 2/5
• Both pass mental addiction, Marius fails physical.
• Hunter drags Marius upstairs to put him in the room - in the bath. Shimazu takes Nadia and puts in bed, with bucket and a glass of water. Not touching the bed - or anything at all.
• Hunter hoses him down - wakes him up, Marius feels rough AF. Feeds him several litres of water, then puts him to bed, mostly naked.
• Tads wanting to practice mindlink - Aswon volunteers. Tads is not embarrassed by deep seated respect for tribal shaman.
• Hunter checks on them at intervals.
• Aswon - plan an alternative route to the docks, he's been "missing" for a while, just in case something that has gone on.
• Tads assenses - doesn't spot anything "wrong" with them, although they are down in Essence.
• Team up at 6-7am, get breakfast, whole team is up ok, Aswon, Hunter and Shimazu go for a run, Tads goes for a jog.
• Hotel bill = 1000 nuyen for team for 2 nights +damage. Nutter with a sword
• Get in the truck at 9, get down to docks for 9:45, no problem with the drive down
• Weather is drizzly, Tads summons F4 city spirit, 2 successes, but takes M stun
• Aswon "how was your night out". "Nothing much"
• Get to the docks, find an out of the way spot, other vehicles are waiting for cargo, can see freighter on final
• Aswon - what do you want us to do Kai? Kai - asks Marius, M=I dunno, let me tune the sensors
• Tads - assenses area - no magical security spotted. Aswon - assenses boat, pretty average, nothing special.
• Hunter - perception check on 5s = 4, Marius the same 3. Faster than "confident", possibly as fast as "reckless".
• Tads tries to sleaze through ward - bonk, alerts warding mage.
• Boat thrashes the water, turns the wrong way, corrects, gets 3 6s on the docking manoeuver, and slams it in.
• Marius joins the back of the 3 waiting trailers.
• Cranes go to work, unload first 3, dockmaster gets tablet thumbprint, wanders off after the 3rd truck.
• small container dropped onto truck, Ares logo on the container, military crates no visible logo, locked with fairly simple cypher locks,
• Marius pulls up alongside the 20ft container. Get out, spot the Ares logo, 6 digit cypher lock - Aswon asks Marius if he can crack it - yes, - ok, not now, just wanted to know.
• Marius checks for bugs - finds nothing.
• Tads and Shimazu look magically - Tads makes test, Shimazu doesn't. 4M falling damage as he's "sucked in" - soaked.
• Kai - "it's probably nukes"... looks around.
• 8 boxes in the van, strapped down and covered in chicken wire.
• Aswon, Shimazu in the trailer to put up a masking ward. Aswon takes one gun and two bottles - one water, one empty. Shimazu takes sword and food.
• Force 6 ward, between Aswon and Shimazu, 3 total, 1 week, rest into time - 3 hours.
• Marius handling check, takes out one car on the way out, but ok - no fuss.
• Route = main road north, then turn in. Tads getting the video feed turned on to monitor. Suggests getting a set of bio-monitors in the future.
• 110km along the coast road - no encounters.
• Checks as they cut the corner - 2 success on navigation, lots on perception - do a colour change, 2 hours, about 1pm
• guys in the back finish ward, head north for 150km to Kornevesk, stop for comfort break for 20mins,
• 3pm, back on the road, heading for Volgograd
• 260more km, just under 3 hours, so around 6pm - edge of the mana storm
• storm=5 physical, force 7, radius 8.4km, speed, 110 kph, duration 28 mins, effects 7 thunder, 10 light rain, 8 hail
• 3 illusion, phantasm, Tads spots huge mana stop
• Hunter planning alternate routes - Marius checks - realises there is no way to avoid it. Storm is too wide.
• Marius handling check on 5 - reroll, get 5.
• Check on 3s for general driving, 6, on 5s for dodging, 3
• Manage to avoid all the prangs, Tads talks to the guys in the rear, makes sure they are fine.
• 25 minutes later, burst out of the far side, see the car on the roof, ignore it and drive on, get to Volgograd at about 10:30. Look for Travelodge on edge of town. Aim to get back on the road about 8am, refuel and get on.
• Tads, F4 city spirit to guard overnight, Aswon to get relief after 3 hours
• Marius passes fix test, Nadia fails mental,
• Marius calls Kai, come to the room with med kit. Have you broken her? I'll explain when you get here. Kai gets kit and goes. I think we're coming down off drugs. Laughs. Tests - max is a 5. Wee into this.
• Tests on Nadia - better results - Nadia is coming down from Nitro
• Kai tells team - Hunter and Shimazu make medicine rolls to determine they are in withdrawal, not coming down.
• End session.

Session 094 is posted, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57019022713964/

This week we made good progress, covering the ground from just south of Volgograd all the way to the Russian base and making delivery.

There was a source of amusement for me this week, as I think the rest of the team have clocked Lee / Marius for his "oops". Back in episode 41, they helped rescue an Ares team from the temple. They got a couple of toys as a thank you, including a "top trump" card.

The card showed an SU-35 Flanker, with the following stats:
Max Speed: 2780 (correct)
Range: 3600 (correct)
Max Weight: 50114 (incorrect)
Max Altitude: 43202 (incorrect)
First Flight: 28/06/88 (correct)
Cost: 43,500,000 (correct)
All the stats were from the wikipedia page for the SU35. Now the card was handed over to Marius (Lee) as the keeper of all vehicle knowledge - but moreso, Lee often claims to have a vast knowledge of all things military, stemming from his extensive service in the armed forces (as far as we can actually tell, he was in basic for about 6 months before he had a really bad fall and shattered both of his legs, requiring them to be pinned and screwed, and medically discharging him). Still, he does like to hold court about his knowledge - and to be fair, he does know a fair bit. But he looked at the card, and despite the preposterous weight of over 50 thousand kilos for a fighter and a service ceiling of 43 thousand meters, pronounced it "good". There was speculation that it might be a limited printing, or a very rare vintage card or something - when actually it's a pointer and a password.

If you convert the weight and altitude figures to north/east co-ords on google maps, it actually takes you to a quarry about 200km north of Volgograd - where I've positioned a smuggler stopover point, just near enough to the new silk road to be useful. The idea was that the team would be able to make lots of contacts there, buy some gear, get some work and get their hands on some flying transport. But because Mr Military didn't follow up on the "puzzle" and just tucked it in the back of his character sheet, they've ignored this for the last 53 game sessions.

If Lee was less experienced with RPGs, or if he was genuinely puzzling over the card and the meaning, I'd have given him skill roles to try and work it out. But as he's been playing Shadowrun for over 20 years, I figured he just didn't want to follow up on that lead. However, the rest of the group have now realised that he's had this all along - I wonder if there's going to be any discussion about this during tomorrow nights gaming session.

Anyway - back to the story. They've got to the base and delivered the "exotic munitions" and are now all set up at the new quest hub, to do a variety of missions to try and earn themselves some credit to get a 2nd hand chopper.

Here's the notes behind the narrative:
Marius and Nadia - no special actions.
Shimazu (1) and Hunter (3) on medicine - could get them to hydrate or jog to mask physical symptoms. Kai goes in, leadership check with kinesics on top, they take the advice and do water/jogging. Kai check - Marius having physical withdrawal, Nadia mental.
Marius makes the test to kick the habit, Nadia they are not so sure (she passed).
Shimazu doing the driving, Marius and Nadia resting, Aswon and Hunter in the back, Tads in the front.
Kai wanting the boxes checked. Shimazu penetrating the ward, BGC=1, Tads doing a 3 way mind link. Assense ok, not pulled in to the warp around the boxes.
Tads wants to keep mindlink up while Shimazu drives using the trode net.
Working out the ETA - estimates about 670km ATCF or 1000km effective. They don't want to arrive at the end of the day, so plan on taking 2 days. Aiming for Saratov for day 1
Team discussing - option 1=milk run, option 2= horrible double cross by the military, option 3 = we open the crate, then they got silly.
Weather is poor - starts to snow, temperature drops
Spot the ZIC security - strong, brutal but low tech. Tads checks magically, 3 high succcess, 5 goods. Spot air elementals bordering on toxic, Alsatians are dual natured.
Front fill in the back on what they are passing, Aswon makes perception test, Hunter looks "tense", Aswon asks him what's up,. "my ex employers", unless they can see through wards, don't worry about it.
Get past ZIC, spot Mamma-Bear coming out of a parts supplier. Shimazu pulls over ok, Tads goes to hover next to her, Kai tries to open the window, then climbs out.
MB = oh its you, though
just passing through, doing supplies. Just shopping, then heading to the quarry, the quarry? MB thinks she is messing with him, did you get the card from rocket, yeah, then walks away shaking her head
Shimazu - the card - is it co-ordinates
Kai navigation (intelligence) check - finds the quarry, 200km away from volgograd
Body checks from the smog - all ok,


Through Volgograd south - 2 lane highway, slow by steady traffic, main road but lots of junctions, careless drivers. Weather - 1-2 on D6 for precipitation, 1-3 rain, 4-6 snow. Temp a few degrees below zero, with a brisk wind from the NE carrying cold air. Roadside there is a mix of light commercial and low quality housing, extended ribbon development that stretched for miles.
First major corp presence is ZIC, large enclave to the east of the road, against the river, several square kilometres of industrial park, high walls topped with tripple razor wire rolls, guard dog patrols with handlers, clearly marked turf. Frequent patrols along the road, pipelines and crosses several major side roads.
SK is the second massive presence, much further north but in a similar vein.
There are also the dockyards and construction yards, several ports / harbours, and a large amount of 2nd tier businesses to support them in a massive urban industrial sprawl. This is where they may run into Momma-Bear.
Smog is heavy, pollutants are rife and the air is thick.
The Volga dam is to the east of the city, nearly 4.5km long, massive double locks for ships to navigate, generates hundreds of megawatts, now run by a Russian division of Shiawaise. Massive agricorp land to the east of the dam.
Leaving the city, the fields get larger and are marked as corp property to start with, then start to shrink again, and the road climbs and they see moorland / state land as well.
about 11am get out of the city and push on up the main road.
about 2pm, run into the border checkpoint, spot the guy doing triage, spot a few people leapfrogging,
Kai to Tads, can you earwig - yes, but if they have magical observers, they will spot me.
Tads looks for magic, none, goes to listen, gets the spiel
Kai gets 250 in cash ready
get pushed through straight away, Shimazu passes handling check to get through the checkpoint narrows ok.
360km to Saratov - crossing of first internal border, very slack, only a small bribe is needed to jump the queue

Weather worsens as they head north, temperature drops and wind picks up, the road narrows to single lane for large stretches
arrive at Saratov at 3pm, check on marius and nadia, ok - wake them both up
go past the air base - spot the fast movers, look for the hotel, Shimazu gets 3 ones on a handling check as they pull up - reroll to get 3 successes
Hotel Mirage, posh, lots of facilities, 400 nuyen per night, per room
valet - presume you are from the base
Kai, yes, we need 4 rooms and parking, we have live animals, one person staying with the truck
Do you wish to park yourself of have me take care of it? Kai, we'll do it- shimazu, swop with Marius,
Kai uses the Milo IDs with Visas, 2 twins and a single.
Aswon - Merc background, airforce hotel
Aswon and Shimazu play billiards, Hunter goes swimming, good meal
Tads staying the truck, everyone else very relaxed, Aswon spells Tads at about 3am
Relatively early start - food at 6am, out by 7am, on the road
Kai in civy dress, with note ready for arrival at the gate
Marius back in the drivers seat, Aswon and Shimazu in the back, everyone else in the front.
Ambush zone - Kai spots the car, warns Marius, Tads goes astral, spots 4+4, reports back, Marius accelerates,
pickup truck pulls into the road, Marius aims for the front quarter, rolls +reroll, 4 success on ram test
"shimazu - if we get them, I want their buttocks for the leeches." I can make steak, they like buttocks.
The bandits get wiped out utterly, spin and flung out of the vehicle.
Tads checks, 6 dead, manifests, scares 1, the other empties the mag into her, "we rob you", tries to attack after making sign of the cross, tads leaves, merges with body ok
Travel for 2 hours, spots the next checkpoint.
Spot the apc and the extra squad of guards, officer raps on door with butt of pistol
Do you have a priority pass, no, offers 200, charisma check ok, sent to the front.
check IDs and give the truck a quick once over, then on the way.
Aswon gets hunter to config computer, tag gps and copy the config of the current look of the truck, set to auto-delete after a week,
Marius looks for fuel stop, to get full tanks - Tads says "but fuel at cost", refill to half is the plan as discussed. Fuel is 13ny/l, decide not to fuel in the end.
Another 360km to Samara - second internal district, border checkpoint here is more militarised, and costs tripple the first to cross quickly or a D6+2 X10 minute wait
At Samara, the road loops around the forest area, through the training grounds. May see soldiers on exercise or yomp, tanks, choppers, fast movers, lots of trucks like theirs.
Change truck config to military olive green, use a basic green, no camo. Stop 100m back, Kai goes for a walk
Approach the officer, do the spiel, wait a minute, told to follow the jeep



The camp is out of town, but walkable, several square km. Basic barracks blocks, arranged in company formations with squares, then into larger battalions, around the main central admin building and armoury for the infantry. Separate area for the navy troops, onto the Volga River running Wolverine style patrol gunboats.

To the north of the training area is a small airfield, set of hangers and service facility, and the "graveyard" of old craft.
Aswon and Shimazu stay in the back, Kai and Hunter get out to meet the OOD, everyone else stays in the front. Tads spots no spirits, no wards at all of any kind
I'm the aide, may I see the delivery, spots the boxes, tells them to pull round the side
The brigadier arrives, squad arrives and falls in to parade,
Assensing, spots a g3 phys ad with charisma skills up, get the boxes offload, techies turn up and degass the boxes
assense the gas, nothing, the boxes are awful.
Brigadier calls patrick, payment approved, patrick calls Shimazu, pays 30k
Brig gets the ammo moved to the armoury, leaves them with the captain.
Captain asks if they want to hang around - what skills? Aswon gives thumbnail brief of the team.

Fuel is 6Ny per litre, top off the truck and jerry cans, ask for avgas,
Spots the choppers, asks for a look, agreed for later, also asks for anti-coagulants.

The base holds up to 2 Brigades, only one is present at the time the team is there. Each brigade is made of 4 battalions, each in their own area, with a battalion being 425 troops, in 4 companies of 89, with attached HQ.
A company has 1 barracks block over multiple floors, with one platoon per floor, made of two 10 man squads and 4 five man fire teams. Each barracks is 15m long, 7.5m wide, 3m high, 45m perimeter and 337.5 cubic meters,


Possible missions
Magical assessment of the battalion – low value
An astral survey of the front - moderate value
Warding the barracks - moderate value
Gun house opponents - low value
Training - dependent on skills
Medical care for sick troops – varies
Finding petty thieves in the base – low
Uncovering the Yakut shapeshifter spy - high

Session 095 is published, and can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57038076033964/

Another manic week, and a somewhat rushed writeup - I only realised on publishing that I'd doubled up the refueling part, so a hasty edit to trim that from the end of last weeks and make things flow. We were also unexpectedly down a player, caught in horrendous UK train service, so that's why Kai was so quiet this week

Figuring they were going to be on the base for a while, I'd drawn a rough map of the whole base, and worked out the platoon, company, and brigade formation, to give a number of buildings and some sort of force structure, and work out the size of barracks blocks so we know what we were looking at for warding. Tads also warned me during the week that she would be wanting to see the infirmary to do some healing, and earn some base favour - so I had a selection of 16 troopers with a variety of infantry related injuries ready for her to work through, and just told her their conditions, the background count (1) and let her get on with it whilst I dealt with someone else.

I'd also spent some time doing some research on wikipedia on the russian choppers, to come up with some broad parameters for the available craft, presenting the team with a range of options from small attack bird / tiny courier all the way through to company sized dual rotor monster - figuring that that will lead to lots of discussion from them and make my life easier.

So, here are the notes from this week:
In the base hospital - there are currently 16 casualties
2 with 1 light, 1 with 2 lights, 2 with moderate, 1 with moderate+1, 5 with moderate+2 and 5 with serious wounds. BGC = 1 in the infirmary. On a D6 roll of 1-2, they will have strong Orthodox views, and may object to shamanic magic being used on them in defiance of Church policy. The doctors want to make everyone better, and will call for casting while asleep / unconcious, regardless of bodily autonomy.

The base - contains concrete cast 4 story buildings that are mostly identical as barracks, with armoury, mess halls and storage areas all following the same pattern.

On a barracks floor, there are 4 beds for standard infantry troops, and a lance-corporal equivalent (going with Western ranks to avoid translation issues, as enough of the team speak Russian that this wouldn't be a problem). This makes a fire team, and there are 3 other fire teams on that floor. The room has 10 beds down each wall, with a 2.5 X 1m bed, and a 0.5 X 0.5m metal locker by the side. The 10 beds on the north make up one squad, the ten on the south make up a second. This is repeated on the next two floors up, so there are 6 squads of troops in each barracks building. The most veteran platoon has the lowest floor, the most junior the top floor. On the ground floor, just under half the floor space is used for toilet/shower blocks or utility space (drying rooms, storage etc), while the other half holds the NCOs. On the north side of the block there are 3 rooms, with bunk beds, a pair of lockers and a desk. The bottom bunk is normally for the Sergeant, and the top bunk for the Corporal. The Sgt and Corporal look after each 20 man platoon, and if they need to be split up, the Sgt takes the senior squad, the corporal the junior. The three rooms thus hold the 6 NCOs for the building. On the south side of the building are 3 more rooms, identical in size and general layout, but with only one bed and locker. The three rooms hold 2 2nd lts and 1 1st lt, again with seniority matching platoon / floor. Each barracks block then has 3 platoons of 20 men (6 squads or 12 fire teams), 6 NCOs and 3 junior officers. The officers have to pass the communal areas to reach their rooms, giving them opportunity to inspect them and shout at the men as required. Each of the floors is reached by an external switch back set of stairs, wide enough for 2 or 3 at a push, leading up to each floor and a large landing, to a set of double doors (1.5m wide). The roof is steeply slanted on the sides to shed snow, but flat on top, and is reached by an angled ladder from the stairs.
Each barracks block holds a company, of 89 combat troops.

A battalion area consists of 4 barracks blocks / companies, around a large parade square. There is a single story mess hall at the south end of the square, and a small armoury that holds personal weapons and small gun benches. The mess hall is staffed with 18 cooks, kitchen assistants and storesman, while the armour has one officer and 3 armourers. At the north end of the square is the battalion HQ building - which has an almost identical layout to the standard company building. Instead of standard fire teams though, there are 4 man mortar teams lead by a corporal. On the ground floor, there is one room with a pair of sergeants, that look after the whole of the mortar platoons, 4 captains that lead one company each, and a major who runs the battalion.

Start
Catch up with the captain, ask him about magic - are you licenced by the church - actually yes. Can I help in the infirmary, will it add to our credit.
Marius - are you going back to the scrapyard, yes, well let me know - I can catalogue, mind link to Hunter, spreadsheet all the parts.
Buying ammo - 100 rounds of 50 cal for Aswon, 500 shotgun ex-ex, 7 sets of helmets and combat boots
Marius - 200 rounds Assault rifle
Hunter - 100 pistol APDS, 2 sets of 5/3 armour,
Tads - 50 flash bangs, 50 AP offensive, 50 flash grenades
Aswon, can we grab helmets?
Marius - examining uniforms, styles, soaking up russian military logistics and style/organisation/rules
Shimazu - riot shield (2/3 version)
Nadia - can we get a bunch of tracer - psychological warfare? 200 rounds AR tracer added.
AVgas (or other exotic fuels) is 2 X regular
full tank of basic fuel and 450l of avgas = 7.5k or so
Tads asks about magical supplies - raised eyebrow and funny look.
Shimazu - contact from Aslick,
NPC - Dr. Wael Mohamed 31.20616, 29.9604, Head of Para-psychology at the Pharos University in Alexandria. Costs 1000 Nuyen per hour, but has pyschology 8, instructor 9, a whole raft of other skills at "international" levels and is an expert in the 6th world
Hunter wants to use the workbench to fit supressor, Russian wants to see his gun, Aswon shows purdey on his side.
Tomaz - QM/armourer. He arranges to fit the supressor and shock pad, in exchange for being allowed to shoot Hunter and Aswon's weapons at the range. Nadia is "strongly encouraged" to go shooting.

Tads and Shimazu go the infirmary, get the summary of wounds. Speak to duty doctor in his office. Explain I am a shamen, funny look. I can fix them - change in demeanour. Explain about shamanic mask, casts translate on Shimazu, mask may scare the soldiers.
Go to first man, say to heal, roll for religion - 1, Nyet! Explain that Tads is not a Russian orthodox priest. Next man over volunteers. Average essence of 5, BGC of 1. Cast, get one success - drained ok. He walks off in a daze - oi, didn't your mum teach you manners? No, I am from orphanage. WEll, still, say thank you. Ok, thank you. Walks off. Tads explains that it's magic not science, may get variable results.
Tads starts to work through the rest. Shimazu stays - psychology, 1 success. Combat soldiers - not phased by him glowering.

Results - all the serious wounds dropped to below serious, one straight to an M. All moderates+2 dropped by at least one, 2 of them to a light wound. M+1 got 1, the M got fixed, then everyone else got at least one box. 2 religious
Shooting for 1 hour, then guy turns up for Marius, he heads off to get Tads with Hunter
Aswon asks for shotgun loan and pistol to learn. Shotgun is a brute for CQB. ASks about the kill houses, says they can come and watch the next company going through.
Tads does healing XXX
Warrant officer takes Tads, Hunter and Marius to the graveyard - Int check to work out rank
20 choppers in the graveyard, 6 viable - working around the 6,
1 - none, 2 on the 2nd attempt at +2
2 - 4 success
3 - 2
4 - 2
5 - 1
6 - 2
all the choppers can be flightworthy in a week with base support,
catalogue+mindlink+router and computers, much canabalising,
much talking about what they need from a chopper, limits of vehicle mask, stealth and ranges etc
Captain Zarkorov catches up with them at the graveyard

Wants wards - team works out logistics
Captain asks about loyalty - asking about mindlink
Kai - do they have to know it's voluntary?
Can you do scouting?
Shimazu offers knife combat
Tads survival, Marius EW/pilot, Aswon infiltration, Hunter surveillance
Checking for magical talent
Assigned a block, park the truck nearby, Tads stays in the truck.
Tads asked about the ammo. She says put them somewhere warded. What is that. Does it need to be permanent. Can you put a temp up around the "special goods", then the brigadier and the captains quarters.
Tads - magic background check - ward the infirmary as people are more susceptible to manipulation, also make the area nicer to promote healing.

I also have a list of possible missions they can work on:
Magical assessment of the battalion – low value
An astral survey of the front - moderate value
Warding the barracks - moderate value
Gun house opponents - low value
Training - dependent on skills
Medical care for sick troops – varies
Finding petty thieves in the base – low
Uncovering the Yakut shapeshifter spy - high

Smuggler Session 096 is now up and published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57053818918964/

We were down Kai again this week, due to a family emergency, so he took a fairly minor role in the story. Hopefully things are on the mend now, and we'll be back to normal this week.

So, we're on base, and getting into the little jobs and rep-building tasks available to them. In some respects I'm treating this as a quest hub in WoW - there's lots of missions, they can do as many or as few as they want here, to increase their standing with the different NPCs, and earn themselves some "rep", which will all go to unlock their special rewards. Hopefully at the end, they'll come away with a Body 7 helicopter (which should make Lee/Marius happy) and gain some mobility / flexibility - but then also have two vehicles to maintain, and a whole bunch of extra headaches to think about, in terms of what vehicle they want where.

Also, a mental milestone reached - half a million words written into the story now! I'm not sure they're *good* words, but at least they're there.

Here are the notes from the session that went into the narrative:

• Tads - going to stay in the truck, in case they are stalking me
• Aswon - stay in the barracks maybe, then you can see, we'll still do watches, plenty of time to spot it building - surrounded by crazy Russians
• Tads wants to find the padre, asks the private - no on base chaplains
• Tads - for magical supplies, should we put them in touch with the dog shaman in Sochi
• Aswon -no. Frantic, cross with the military - no. Give them the mage, he deserves them
• Tads - plan to go through the cafeteria at meal times looking for astrally active subjects
• Gun bunny’s clean guns, Marius checks the truck over,
• Nadia gets her smartest clothes on after a shower. Gives people dirty looks. Aswon remembers he has a suit, they find an iron, Shimazu puts suit on, then straps sword onto his belt as well.
• Taken to dinner at 7:50, 3rd floor, nicer corridors, snowy white dinner set and decanters
• Funny look at Shimazu, but ok, they have full mess dress on.
• Captain Zarkarov - ops officer+ Brigadier , look at Kai, do you have other tasks? Kai - we do have some other things to do, but we can work on this
• We only have a few rules -no people smuggling, prefer not to do wet work, happy to do property destruction, avoid massive environmental damage.
• Brigadier - Can you show me the horns? I'm curious
• Shimazu can't understand, they change to English. Tads does mind link, explains possible use for lack of loyalty. Tads also shows him the astral realm, Aswon waves in astral too. Confirms the Brigadier is a boy scout.
• Astral in room - sometimes no emotion, numbers game.
• Assenses the brigadier - oh, it's that obvious. How do I hide it? Watches Aswon masks and unmask.
• Aswon - how have you learnt, Aswon, can we talk in front of the captain. We share everything, including the size of my shits, shared joke with the captain.
• Tads explains mechanics of masking a bit.
• Interrupts, food is served. Hunter detects spices, Aswon gets a 17 on cooking.
• Tads explains astral masks, and hermetic not having them.
• Aswon explains totem modifiers / outlooks,
• Asks Marius about choppers, Marius is open about wanting one, but says he could get 3 in service- probably.
• Marius wants the Body 7. What would you use it for - some legitimate work perhaps, but
• Desert arrives, Brigadier stops conversations whilst others are in the room.
• Share memory of the effect of the ammo, ew - but it should do that to the enemy.
• Aswon - nearest place we know is 600-700km away.
• Discussion on level of security vs force of ward. Talk about tiered wards
• Aswon and Shimazu doing temp wards, Tads surveying troops, Hunter running the assault course. Asks Marius and Kai to be free, Nadia to survey helicopters and parts.
• Engages team with a contract, explains offensive against Yakut. Asks her for combat scouting
• After dinner cigar and drinks, general chatting, anecdotes, Aswon tells story about Nadia and machine pistol - elemental and then adept, then long talk about firearm safety
• Back to barracks, Aswon asks who the HTH instructor is. Nikolai Petrovich - Harkness approach
• 1st temp ward - armoury, F6 Shimazu and Aswon - 2 successes, 1 week, 3 hours, Brigadiers quarters = F6, 4 successes, 2 weeks, 2 hours, Captains quarters F6, 4 success 2 weeks, 2 hours
• Tads -assensing, 5 successes, checks the first 5 platoons of alpha company.
• Hunter - athletics check, 2 successes (5s) - gets good experience on the course, gets stuck on the sheepdip obstacle, has to use internal air tank.
• Marius and Kai, chopper, back to Sochi, land in the docks, which way to the shops,
• Dog shamen first, cat shaman with a coffee, then the mage, Rolls for amount of warding materials - 62 units available.
• Hunter - assault course run, then pistol training for 4 hours
• Tads midday (4), and evening (4) - company Alpha is clear.
• Marius flies the chopper back, lands - 3 6s on handling.
• End of the day.

So, things are proceeding nicely - let's see if they can plow ahead and get their chopper before we reach episode 100!

Session 097 is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57068913188964/

This week the team uncovered the edge of a plot going on in the base - it started off nice and quiet, then they got told about a couple of petty thefts, and as soon as they realised there were low value items that had massive personal links missing both Lee and Jez (the two longest playing at the table) both knew what was going on - fortunately, at least one of them has the IC skills to back this up. After that it devolved into a massive conspiracy froth, which was kind of interesting.

Session notes below, as usual:

• Aswon - sound based perception check + sound filters, 4 successes on 5 - about 7am - hears people outside, gravel scrunching near the truck. Aswon grabs Shimazu, leaves the rest. People putting offerings behind the truck - what's going on? Ask them, Aswon tells her "you have visitors", unarmed troops.
• Tads checks she's not going to hit anyone with the door, introduce themselves and offer gifts. Will there be services? Tads - I will have to ask for permission, they describe general services, Tads assense, some cyber replacements, hopeful mood, the soldiers go to morning drill.
• Shimazu intelligence check - 4 success on 4s, can instant buy - buys Russian 1 - after much peer pressure.
• Aswon, Shimazu and Hunter go for a run - Shimazu wonders about the assault course, Aswon says "no, I want to keep my fingers", Marius and Nadia go to the choppers, Tads goes to find the captain with Kai.
• Issue with the guards - one follow the 3, one follows Marius and Nadia, leaving Tads and Kai alone.
• Marius and Nadia, snooty attitude from the CAG, Nadia works out why - young kid comes in fixing choppers, why can't you.
• Kai and Tads go to see Captain Zarkorov
• Tads - asks for service permission, details about the scouting - he says he he's getting a dossier together.
• Kai - can we do bodyguard training, Z asks what resources you need, Kai says he will get something sorted.
• Kai - is there anything you *personally* need. Captain gives funny look, then says no.
• 3 go for a general run, nothing special so the trooper keeps up. Team gives him water and a chocolate bar.
• Marius - gets experience with the logistics system, needs some work in the workshop, some can be done in the graveyard, plans to do work in the graveyard first to stay out from under the CAGs nose to avoid him having a monk on.
• Rotorcraft B/R test on 5 - none on the complimentary, 2 on the main after a reroll- buys 2 as he wants to impress.
• Marius starts work on the KA-60.
• Hunter goes to find the HTH instructor, asks to join in, instructor style is basic thuggery - Harkness method. Troops not like, but it's effective. One troll, taking lots of hits, but not pissed off. Gets to talking about the assault course - best time is around 6mins
• Tads, Aswon, Shimazu go to do warding – work out what they can do with the 62 units of materials
• F8 on the brigadier and the captain, then F6 on the armoury = 22 units
• 40 units left, 20 buildings, so doing force 2s
• 8 buildings in the first day, 1 hour per F2 ward for the basic buildings
• Pre-rolling for wards on the other buildings where the TN is high:
• Armoury, F6 = 4 successes, 2 hours
• Captains, F8 = 5 successes, 2 hours
• Brigadier, F8 = 4 success, 3 hours
• Ward team does a unique symbol per building to allow them to report back in.
• Kai - asks the captain to go look at the troops. Z says sure, will pass the word around.
• Tads finds one of her acolytes, arranges to do a dusk sermon in the woods.
• End of day one - Marius has fixed the gearbox and rotor shaft, - CAG has lingering issues, but is impressed.
• Kai approached by MP, told about Ivan Kuznetsov, D company, Platoon 1, intercepted on the way to the assault course
• Kai asks him for details - missing when they went to the rifle range, excellent charisma roll and kinesics, getting the story and that the rest of the platoon tried to help him find it. Kai reports back to the MP - checks scheduling, narrow it down to 400 or so possible.
• Dobry - D company, Platoon 3, not from the same place as Ivan.
• Kai, asks Zarkorov for an admin person, checks for thefts and losses. Only these two stand out. Cross-reference for 3rd parties. Admin person points out they are both radio operators. Goes to find Dobry, doing survival training
• Lots of successes again. Gets details of the theft - early evening during amphip training. Offers to help, says they might need to cast spells on him - looks uncertain and asks if it will hurt. Kai returns and they all swap info,
• Marius asks - what use are these items, magical tracking or sympathetic magic
• Aswon - magical assault or woodland sprites - one of two extremes. Marius - it's the radio operators, could massively disrupt the comms net.
• Kai - will tell the admin to look for more petty thefts. We look for evidence here. Aswon - do we tell other brigades, Kai - no, not yet.
• Tads - covers Domovoy + Leshi / evil spirits - bad ones are malicious. Tads - I can summon a spirit to search for things, it will take a while on a base this big. We can do mindlink / catalogue to find it.
• Marius - won't the intruder know that the base is being searched? Aswon, probably not - the spirit will just search, the thief might be a phys-ad - but yes, if they are magically active they might spot it.
• Marius - are they going to go for the last radio operator in D company - can we stake out the D company barracks.
• General description of the barracks, Marius thinking about putting a camera in the locker, one facing it to try and catch the thief
• Kai - we won't tell the people that we're putting stuff in their lockers, want to read them - grunts won't have access to sergeants.
• Marius fashion a trigger to detect locker opening. - E B/R - 3 success, 1 9 - good micro switch for the hinges. Suggests telling only the Brigadier, may have a deep sleeper agent. Don't tell the radio operator as he might not be a good actor.
• The D company has not been warded, schedule it for day 3, to make the person do it day 2, as long as it's not a secret that we're doing it.
• Kai - not tell the brigadier / captain
• Aswon - we should tell them to warn other bases, and it's going to end in a fight, and we'll end up shot. We need a code word
• Kai tells the captain to tell the brigadier. Briefs the brigadier - code word is sputnik, agreement to carry concealed. Brigadier raises the idea of returning radio operators to reseve units and get new ones, or using them for false flag. Arrange to get a couple of stun batons from the MPs
• Marius asks Nadia to write a program to alert if the trip switch goes off -

I have a list of the order that the thefts will occur in - so far they've planted their bug in D company 2nd platoon - which is a shame as the next theft will be from somewhere else instead... oh well!

Smuggler Episode 098 is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57086824773964/

Quite pleased with how this one ran - it started off with some RP stuff with the Shaman and between Kai and Aswon; and then went on to routine training / warding of the base and such like. Towards the end of the session, one of the wards got broken (crucially on the way out, not in - so they had almost no time to respond), at which point the team swung into action to try and catch the thief. We didn't do combat initiative, but kept it to short punchy actions going around the table, with the team converging on the spot from different directions, with different responses and it seemed to elicit a bit of excitement / tension and a feeling of pressure. They didn't catch the thief, but they do have a spell signature now, confirming some thoughts and opinions they have.

As usual, here are the notes taken during play that generated the narrative. A little judicious re-arranging of stuff especially towards the end for narrative tension, that doesn't really change the story in a meaningful way, but makes a little more sense hopefully.

• Around 9pm on the Wednesday Tads - into the woods.
• Forest domain, summon spirit to search for the clearing. 7 successes, drained ok. Orders - mental image of the 3 acolytes, lead me to them. Search vs 4s, 3 successes, leads Zooms ahead, comes back, sighs at her for being slow, leads her to clearing.
• Oration/preaching roll - default to Charisma, gets an 11+9, 2 successes. Perception check in the dark, nothing. Tads assenses the crowd, astral perception, 3 successes. Detects about a dozen in the darkness, no hostile intent, quiet contemplation and acceptance of her words.
• "We want you to lead us in prayer to the Motherland"
• Defaulting to Charisma with Magic background as a complimentary, TN=8, 1 success.
• Some chanting, movement to avoid getting cold - support the land and get its support in return. Some stuttering and repeats/tangents. Avoids military / religion references. Aims for 15 minutes.
• Agrees with troops to meet again in 2 nights time at the next phase of the moon, Tads agrees. She will leave a note on her barracks door if plans need to change. Asks the acolytes if the sermon was what they wanted, they look uncomfortable with the idea and say it was generally ok.
• Goes to infirmary, 3 new casualties, checks with Dr, Dr tells Tads glibly that she has checked and they're all fine with magical healing, and just to get on with it.
• Three people, all with M+2, still a BGC of 1, average essence of 5. All were trapped under an APC that came off the chocks and crushed them underneath until they were rescued. Tads arranges to get the patients outside 1 at a time for a minute, Dr struggles to understand why, but agrees and gets a porter to help.
• Trooper 1, 4 successes, reduced to 1 box. No drain
• Trooper 2, 5 successes, no damage remaining, No drain
• Trooper 3, 3 successes, reduced to 2 boxes, takes an L
• Dr impressed, vodka toasts, heads to bed.
• Aswon and Kai - what can they do to the radio operators - A, easiest is tracking, but also mind probe, control thoughts, influence etc. Not fireballs, or stuff like that. Extended area clairvoyance. K - can anyone spot a ritual building up. A - yes. K - if someone has a spell cast on them recently, is that detectable. A - yes, but maybe not tell what it is. A, check - could do something like a reverse translate, would hose down 3C. K - what can we do to protect them. A - put wards on the vehicles and tell radio operators to stay in the box. Or send tads to put shielding on people. Chat about targeting spells or spirits on the targets of ritual tracking.
• Kai - thinks they need to track the source of the problem. Depends on what the brigadier wants.
• Aswon - are we going to have watcher spirits on guard - they would be visible. Kai - is in favour.
• Marius - can we have a spirit on standby, so if we have a picture of the thief, so we can send it to go search / track them.
• Discussion about warding the brigade area and working out how feasible it is.
• Tads comes back 1 hour 45 mins later, looking dirty / tired
• Hunter checks the guards are still there and ok. H asks M how many cameras he has, has 3 ready to plant, 3 spare.
• K asks M - do you want rank to allow you to go around anywhere = Yes. T - do you want to be invisible, M = no.
• 3 going for a run - Marius comes with, Nadia will go too. There are now 4 guards, 2 are in PT kit. Draw some attention, end the run near the assault course. Marius has no athletics, WP test. Aswon advises on how to run. Marius instabuys athletics 1
• Kai goes to find the captain - outlines options and threats discussed the night before. Tell him about putting cameras in - captain calls for a tac radio, 2nd radio goes to the MPs, who will escort them. K - can we get lineage - Captain=no. Tads summons a F5 city spirit for the day, 1 success.
• Team generally carrying extendable staffs, spears, tasers or swords now. About 9:30, Marius, Kai and the MP go to put a camera in, Electronics (4) =2, Planting 3 cameras in Company D, Platoon 2. Barracks never had cameras. Takes an inventory of the locker contents. Tads tells the spirit about "the plan", and to follow the target.
• Aswon, Shimazu and Tads - do another 8 wards on the next barracks. Kai monitoring the cameras for the day.
• Marius and Nadia go to fix the KA-60. Two techs helping. Marius gets 2 successes on 6s. Int check on 4s = 2. Realise it will take 3 days to finish.
• 1pm radio call to Kai. Hunter takes over the watch, Kai goes to MP office.
• Details given about theft from Gleb - they work out there are 12 RO in the brigade, how many have been hit. Mapped out.
• New plan - put two spare cameras into B1 and B3. Think if they complete C, they will force the thief back to
• Finish Charlie, then move to Bravo
• Call Marius back to recover 1 from Delta, put 2 in B1 and B3. Electronics B/R on 5s, 2,2,2, buying one success to get that. Kai goes to speak to Captain, he's busy, leaving a message with the sergeant. Asking for more than appointment with the med facility i.e. away from their own unit. Asks for pictures of the R/O., Then Kai back to monitoring. Marius puts 2 more hours in to the end of the day. Hunter goes back to HtH combat
• Aswon finds a throwing rock.
• Ward B1 and 2, 10 minutes into B3. Detect A2 going down. Tads lies down and projects. Perception check failed. Aswon and Shimazu walk over towards Alpha, Kai check the lockers - all still secure. Hunter heads out from HTH back to area.
• This is at 16:10, about 10-15 minutes. Aswon and Shimazu both accelerate to 30mpt. Marius spots that Nadia has her SMG in the back. Marius warns Hunter - Hunter "oh fuck",
• Tads arrives first, looks in astral, no life in middle floor, checks top floor, empty. Down to bottom platoon floor, life signs,
• Aswon stands guard at the ground, Shimazu goes up, barrel in, sword and taser. Astral perceive - the floor is empty. Tads tells Aswon A3, calls over the radio, Shimazu charges in, rolls a botch on Russian (1 dice), "I kill you" Trooper goes for combat stance, Shimazu ignores him goes for the roof.
• Hunter comes round corner, spots Aswon, has eyes on the other side of the building. Shimazu heading for the roof.
• Aswon goes to stop the platoon heading back, Kai calls the MP to do the same, and ask for detention of guy in A3
• Tads goes to assense A2, 1 success, has another go - gets 2 successes. Signature and the spell is telekinetic manipulation
• Shimazu on the roof, perception check - spots the stuff going on, but not the target.
• Tads sends the spirit to apprehend
• Marius gets to brigade area, calls Hunter for a sit rep, slows and turns to ultrasound, starts to act as a picket, Nadia sticks with Marius.
• Trooper bursts out of A3, Aswon shouts at him to stop, Corporal says WTF, brief explanation, and Corporal backs up Aswons shouted order, gets platoon spread out.
• Kai calls into MP radio and clears the team, explains what stuff is where.
• Troops are coming back, radio net goes alive, troops start to form a perimeter,
• Tads watches the spirit.
• Aswon checks the A3 guy - mundane as all hell, very confused. Aswon queries - he has nothing to report.

Smuggler session 099 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/kren.cooper/notes?...80%3A1563135646

We were down Marius / Lee this week, so I didn't push the pace on this one, letting the team dawdle a little with the investigation - hoping that we'd all be there for episode #100 and a nice big juicy fight where they could earn the eternal gratitude of the Brigadier. And then Hunter / Justin says he can't make next week either due to work. Dammit - pesky real life. Oh well.

So, they've got lots of ideas, some are close to the mark - and things are nicely coming to a head. Then Tads / Ali decides to go off scouting and gets in a 2 on 1 fight with two shapeshifters. Oopsie! Well, she's only on Serious +2, so it's not that bad - right? Let's just hope someone on the team gets to her body before the base medics do and treat her without the +2 mod for awakened characters and risk her losing a magic point... double oopsie!

The plan for next week is to see if the players will head into the woods towards the fight - if they do, then they meet the other two shapeshifters in the strike squad (Bear and Tiger - who are a lot more significant in close combat than the Raven and Owl encountered so far) or if they go to rescue / secure Tads.

If they go for the fight, it's risky as they lack their magical overwatch (but may get some help from the base) but could roll up the cell. If they go for Tads, they risk losing the cell who will certainly send the Owl back to relay the news, and may go to hide in the forest. We'll have to see!

As usual, here are the notes from this weeks session:

• Tads manifested - tell Aswon to get someone to go get my body, unless it's possessed, bring my body here please, mage about.
• Aswon, calls to watch his quadrant, her body might be possessed, Kai was confused
• Tads doing a sweep of the area. Aswon telling nearby officer to watch, then sprints off
• Kai briefs Vostok - keep mens eyes out, look for shimmers / footprints without cause. Keep eye on the other cameras.
• Aswon takes Tads to nearest warded building, then return to post. Tads - can we find the locker owner.
• Hunter goes to stand over another building to watch the locker. Kai asks Shimazu to come off the roof and into the top floor and just look around.
• Tads asks for people to stay out in case of transformed enemies. Kai asks Aswon to watch up / air targets
• Kai - have yuo had a look around astrally. Tads - very quickly, might have missed something. K - was the ward battered or passed through - passed through with force.
• Vostok sends other troops back to barracks, they secure the suspect one. Find out who the R/O is, and then get him over.
• Tads checks the room, finds nothing. Reroll - finds nothing. Shimazu checks - transformation manipulation with active aura reading spell
• Kai - when he checks, spot for anything "extra" in his locker.
• Aswon - click moment. Let me check for "additions" like a bomb.... - checks, finds nothing.
• RO/ not keen to go in, with possibility of IED. Get details of the stolen goods. Determine locker is the source of the spell - think about making holes in locker. Aswon rolls chemistry. Determine simple plastic, not that high an OR.
• Kai asks for mindlink - Tads explains to the trooper. He says yes if it will help get it back. Aswon tells them the rest of the barracks is ok to come back to. Tads 3 success on mindlink, gets details of penmanship / love. Tads does catalogue - 4 other bibles, none the one you want. Tads goes to catalogue the other buildings, spends an hour but doesn't find anything.
• Aswon explains to Kai about how to disrupt longer rituals, talking about security cyphers, Hunter interrupts to say that the RO will be told at the same time as the troops.
• What if we put the RO into a room (Tads suggests infirmary) for a week, while training, to put them behind a stronger ward. Hunter suggests collecting all the items to put in a locked/warded/guarded area.
• Hunter raised - why B1 and 3 hit, not B2 or 4 - are there items in there or not. Shimazu - can we get photos for future catalogues?
• Kai - why did the ward go down, Aswon - everyone fucks up eventually, Tads, they might want to see our response, Shimazu - psychology roll. Intimidating response level from teams. Tads discussing timing - Hunter suspects an inside job.
• Kai - could we put items that look personnel / are trapped? Team, no - they are only taking very personal items. Tads realise that that means the thief MUST be astrally active.
• Kai - ask the troops, what would be gutted about losing.
• Talk amongst Tads, Kai and Aswon about transformation, masking,
• Hunter checks shower drains (small) then looks for a vantage point, spots a huge owl. Warns the team. Tads flops after warning her MP.
• Spot the owl, near the gutting area. Follow it, roll initiative, spot for bibles, Assenses with 5 successes, Raven hits Tads, 4D, soaks to an L, goes up. Raven attacks again with FIM bonus, 3S soak, Owl hits for 5D, Tads takes an S. Flies off - owl casts a spell at deadly at her, slides off shield. She manifests and shouts
• Hunter sound based perception check,
• MP radio

Smuggler session 100 is now posted, and can be found at this location: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57115736053964/

Had to work fast to get this one written up this week, as I'm supposed to be away shooting a live role play event this weekend - so won't have time to do it on the saturday / sunday like I normally would. But - I had a very productive night yesterday, managing to bash out 8K of narrative in just over 4 hours!

So - 100 sessions in, seemed like a good point for a bit of a celebration, so I bought a selection of cookies, chocolates, crisps, cakes and other nommy stuff for my players to say "thanks for sticking with it", which seemed to go down well. With us ending on a bit of a cliff-hanger last time, they were all keen to get stuck in as well. What I particularly liked was that the players either didn't mind a certain amount of "timey wimey" stuff, or were actively happy with the jumping back and forth - perhaps realising that I was trying to build tension, and have people arrive from their converging locations at dramatic moments to get their part in the story (all except poor Kai - maybe he'll buy some athletics after this!)

I also genuinely thought that we were going to lose a PC this week - with Tads ending up being disrupted in astral combat, sailing way past Deadly damage and 2 boxes into her overflow in one hit - and she doesn't have a lot of body to give much of a buffer. She failed her magic loss test (though is offsetting that with a geas), and very nearly had to test 3 more times as the base medics did frantic first aid on her as well. Instead, she's stabilised on deadly, and being rushed to the military base hospital for trauma surgery. I worked with her on the rolls after the game session, and the surgery was successful, dropping her to serious wound, although it had a negative option indicated. Between the neg. option and the wound effect from the disruption, she's got stress points on her Body and Reaction, and her Body has actually failed - which will delay her healing somewhat.

I'm planning on giving karma next session as they've wrapped up the shapeshifter plotline pretty much, so this might be a good point where we can do some fast-forward downtime - Hunter can carry on training his pistols, Marius can fix the choppers, and I'm sure the others can benefit from some training time. Hopefully we can handle this abstractly, and then work out where they are going next.

Below is the list of notes from the game session - if anyone does look through these to compare to the narrative, you'll see that this week there's actually been a lot more chopping and changing of stuff for the story. None of it materially affects the outcome, but I felt that it made the narrative flow much better this way, and added to the drama of the situation somewhat (or at least I hope it did).

I do have a favour to ask though - if you're reading these updates, I'd love to get some feedback on your thoughts - any feedback, even if it's negative. Sometimes I feel like I'm posting into a vacuum - I see the read counter go up, but never know if people enjoy this or not.

Notes:

• Around 8pm on the Thursday
• Tads is on S+2, looking down at Owl+Raven. Her physical body is by Battalion Delta, Company 2 barracks, with an MP who has just called for a med team
• Hunter is on the edge of the forest, has a bearing to the scream, 320m away
• Kai is in the truck, in Brigade A area, HQ building.
• Shimazu and Aswon are at Battalion B, Company 2 (about 100m north of Tads)
• Marius and Nadia had returned to the chopper area to gather tools and spare parts for work on the KA-60 in the graveyard
• Shimazu to Kai - bring Spear, punch dagger and Hunter asks for his gun
• Shimazu - warning about Tads needing magical care. MP - don't treat her without consulting with us. Shimazu and Aswon heading towards Tads, asks Kai to bring stuff to them
• Marius asks Hunter for GPS
• Tads heads for Hunter and spots him, then says "owl is a shapeshifter, at least one other, magical", Hunter relays
• Kai grabs the 3 weapons, then says he will call in support. Gets on the radio to the MPs - asks for airstrike / mortars / confirmed enemy activity. etiquette check - two 5s.
• Marius spots Anton, waved over to chopper, nadia into the back
• Aswon heading for hunter, Shimazu
• Marius spots 2 other choppers spooling up, spots the nose mounted minigun. not full turret, limited arcs, no rockets
• Shimazu attempt FA, fails due to condition moves her inside. With help of medics, gets a success.
• Aswon meets Hunter at base of tree, asks him if he has his gun. No, Kai is bringing it.
• Aswon tells Hunter about regen.
• Aswon and Hunter close to 100m.
• Marius calls Hunter asks for laser designation spotting
• Bear (5) and Tiger (11) on stealth closing on Aswon and Hunter - Aswon hears the bear, not the tiger, Aswon calls a warning to Hunter, Hunter finds the biggest tree he can
• Aswon 12 (three ones!), Hunter 16, Bear 11, Tiger 17, Tads 35
• Tads makes perception check, spots some movement, but not clear - under the canopy level
• Bear bursts out, Hunter called shot to the face, 6 successes, 11D damage, blam, the bear goes down.
• Aswon closes to check - assenses the bear, jumped by the tiger - manages to hit it for a 7d, down
• Choppers pick up snipers and start to head over.
• Tads heads over to source of pistol shot.
• Aswon calls bagsy on the tiger, Shimazu calls bagsy on Aswons gear.
• Tiger crawls up the spear, Aswon beats 5 vs 4, base hit
• Bear up - charges Hunter, another called shot, down again
• Hunter over radio "these fuckers won't die!"
• Kai arrives at the barracks, Shimazu finishes first aid.
• Shimazu grabs weapons and runs off into forest at fast speed
• Tads swoops down and kicks the tiger in the back of the head - 6D. (regens)
• Tads manifests and shout a warning about the owl and the regen
• Reroll initative - Aswon 21, Tads 30, Hunter 15, Shimazu 22, Tiger 14, Bear 17
• Tads - spots Owl and Raven heading towards the combat, Shimazu closing at top speed
• Aswon continues to beat on Tiger - 6 vs 1, D hit and the taser stun
• Bear surges at Hunter, Hunter rerolls, 6 vs 5 8S impact hit, 4 points of armour, takes a light, staggered back
• Hunters go - full defence, manages to fend off the bear. Tiger attacks Aswon, takes S+M stun
• Tads swoops in and manifests, shout warning "owl and raven incoming"
• Shimazu fails athletics check - soaks a quickness(m) check. passes.
• Aswon attacks Tiger, stuns it to D, it goes down.
• Bear attacks Hunter, Hunter RR, gets 4 vs 5 - Bear soaks 7L, no damage
• Hunter attacks Bear - 3 vs 5, 8D damage, soaks 4D, takes a 2nd light
• Tads flies up, puts shielding on Aswon and Hunter
• Shimazu throws spear towards Aswon, runs towards Hunter, Strength check as default for thrown, 1 success, is "on target"
• Aswon runs to catch the spear - success.
• combat round 3
• Aswon 19, Hunter 14, Tads 31, Kai 16, Shimazu 24, Marius 26, Bear 8, Tiger 16, Owl 9, Raven 14.
• Shimazu throwns rifle to Hunter, readies weapon and charges bear
• Tads 31 - spell defence on self, shielding on 3 fighters, watches for flying intercepts
• Marius 26 - spinning up the minigun, one action aiming at the owl
• Aswon 19 - attack the tiger, 6 vs 0, 10D magic, soaks to an S
• Kai 16 - running safely
• Raven 14 - spirit to take out the pilot, swoop towards Aswon, gets spotted by Aswon
• Hunter 14 - Q(6) to catch gun - fails.
• Owl 9 - swoops down to attack Shimazu, with flame aura on - 7 vs 8, base hit, 9L, no soak, Shimazu soaks flame aura
• Bear 8 - 4 vs 3, 8S damage, 4S soak, Hunter rr, takes an L, up to moderate damage
• Tads 21 - delay
• Marius 16 - perception check, pilot has lost it, Marius takes over controls,
• Shimazu 14 - quick draw Katana, 9 vs 0, takes a D, fails regen, soaks the flame aura.
• Aswon 9 - 6 vs 1, 9S, goes down (makes regen)
• Tiger, then Raven 4 vs Aswon - Aswon dodges
• Tads 21 attacks Raven 6M, raven takes a L
• Tads 11 heads for the bear, attacks the bear, 1 vs 2, soaks 8S - failed. Goes 2 boxes into overflow.
• Marius 6 - has to make handling check - passed with many success
• Sniper - shoots Raven, Raven goes into convulsions
• Shimazu - engage the bear, 9 vs 10, 8S, makes soak, takes an L, one step back
• Shimazu spotted Tads being taken out, warns the team
• Aswon gets Kai to radio to the MP to go for it
• Marius gets the choppers to do a sensor sweep - finds nothing, troops looking out.
• Spirit still confusing pilot - Marius pretty aware of this.
• Marius heads back to the barracks block, calls out that he thinks he has a spirit passenger
• Aswon heads to the chopper and spits the spirit, Shimazu runs in and checks on Tads - they have trauma patched her and she is down - but alive - just
• Tads:
• Disrupted in astral combat - checked for loss, FAIL
• Treated for deadly wound - +2 mod taken, no test, biotech failed
• Treated again for deadly wound, +2 mod taken, no test, biotech failed
• Trauma patch applied - checked with Body (6) test for deadly wound - 2 success, no limb or organ damage
• Trauma surgery on 6s, one reroll from the doc, 2 successes - surgery succeeds with 1 negative option.
• 1 wound effect from surgery, one from the wound - rolls 6+1, Body+Reaction. Body = 3 stress points, Reaction = 2
• Stress test on Body = fail, -2 body, +2TN for body linked skills, will heal naturally
• Stress test on Reaction = pass- test, will heal naturally

Session 101 writeup is now posted, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57143670588964/

Little late with this one - was in hospital on saturday and fussing puppies on sunday, so both kinda important...
Was actually a little surprised with this writeup - it ballooned a lot and ended up being only just short of 10K words. As I gave Karama out, and there was a lot of time spent updating paperwork and going through metamagics and such like, I expected it to be a short one and pretty easy to do.

The team made out like bandits on the karam front, as they managed to hit all the major plot points and solve them, so even though it's 'only' been ten sessions since the last award, the karma was in the 17-19 range for the group - the biggest award they've had. Aswon finally had enough for bonding the spear, so he got a vision as the spear joined with his mind. Both he and Lee (Marius) reacted to the vision (both being well aware of Earthdawn and the lore of SR) - Jez with a big grin as he knows he's smack in the middle of juicy plot, and Lee with a 'oh god, what have you done' expression. We also finally got Kai / Fozzy to spend some karma on upgrades, and I let him double initiate - I wouldn't normally, but he was a grade 1, compared to the 3/4 of the other magic users, and was sitting on 68 good karma - I wanted him to catch up a little, and it also meant he got 2 power points, so could take astral perception, and in turn help the team finish the wards while Tads was in her coma.

While I was describing the parade, I fired up the Russian national anthem on the laptop which was quietly playing away in the background, to give it a suitable ambience - the players were initially after some of the special ammo, but since Hunter had to have his lungs hoovered out to deal with radioactive particles and the constant mana warp around them, suddenly they're not so keen any more. Weird...

Here are the notes from the session to compare to the writeup, or see what *actually* happened - exclusive the brevity on some of them, as they're often the best I can type while keeping up with the conversation, and designed as much to kick my memory of the session as to make sense to a stranger...

• Around 8:30pm on the Thursday
• Shimazu biotech self light wound
• Aswon go out, astral patrol
• Hunter going out to go look for body
• Kai goes looking for the captain
• MPs say - no hazmat suits - Shimazu and Hunter go.
• Base on full alert.
• Hunter takes off gas mask to have a sniff - body test. Detects nothing. Shouted at to put back on, goes off to find the stash - gets all the stuff.
• Kai - need to speak to you - may be a mage about. I want to see about my shaman too - she's “being taken care of”.
• Karnma awarded overnight
• Friday 12
• Kai - check that everyone gets their stuff returned
• ASwon - buying spears 5>6, bonding spear. Gets Sperethieal 1 instabuy, ritual in the woods, greets it by name. WP8 test, passes out - vine thicket, blood drips - spire
• Hunter - training pistols and unarmed, gets pistol instructor and unarmed dedicated trainer
• Shimazu watches Tads after Aswon - minions come in too, polite chit chat
• Kai - Initiates, train Athletics 2>3 (instabuy) and Pistol 3>4 (couple of days with trainer), initiates twice, 30 karma, astral perception, metamagics
• Marius 2 X 1 day fixes, in the hanger
• Hunter goes for nights
• Saturday 13
• Marius fix chopper - moves to 2nd
• Sunday 14th
• Marius - 8 days in total on the Mi 26
• Aswon helping Kai learn a new technique > Improved Masking, Improved Warding
• Hunter, 5 days to get Unarmed 2>3, Thrown, 8 days, clears the cough
• Day 4 full parade, inspiring speech
• Advise the brigadier to burn and bury the 3 corpses, retain the owl
• Kai asks Zarakov for the special amm0 - no, but may get some other stuff.
• Shimazu asks for anyone that knows about leeches - no
• shimazu aura reading, all invited to train with the squadies
• finish the wards
• Marius hands over the 26, spots the group captain has a lemon on,
• Hunter perception check - low grade headache
• Marius - makes nice with the GC - makes an etiquette check, GC makes a blurt about Marius going behind his back - M racks brain, can't think about it
• Astral checks - he's down about 1 point of essence+
• Kai talks to Zarkarov, possible infection, get him to hospital
• Tads wakes up after 20 days, Shimazu there and throws himself down to the floor with sword out and apologises
• Tads accepts the apology offhand, almost as bad
• 8 more days
• 6 days to get the team chopper back up in action
• get the chopper awarded, also allow Kai to get the 50 cal hmg

Also, here was my "game plan" for the session, the notes I had for what was going on:

1. Tads rushed off for surgery in the base hospital, base time of 2 hours, comes out in a coma, still on D, with collapsed lung, shock and minimal functions
2. Dr Illona Astirdar - will have to wait to see what happens. 16 days for tads to recover conciousness - as soon as she gets to S+3, she heals self to M, then takes 4 days to recover to 0, 2 more days for body to recover from 2 to 4 and for stress to be healed under medical care.
3. Award Karma - if Kai gets astral perception, team can continue warding as per plan.
4. Items can be found in the forest, near where the owl landed, and returned to their owners
5. A team of soldiers gather the evidence and bring back to the base for post mortems - chance for the team to find out about what they are. If the team do the recovery, check rad exposure from Target Wastelands, give body stress points out.
6. Brigadier reveals the ID of Dimitry Ivanov, the imposter corporal from 2nd Brigade 4th Company.
7. Public parade 2 days later, whole brigade out, + base staff, Tads awarded order of courage, one of her minions accept on her behalf.
8. The Order of Courage is awarded to citizens of the Russian Federation who showed dedication, courage and bravery in protecting public order, fighting crime, in rescuing people during natural disasters, fires, accidents and other emergencies, as well as for bold and decisive actions committed during the performance of military or civil duties under conditions involving a risk to life
9. Minions keep watch on Tads while in a coma
10. Space cleared in maintenance bays for choppers - have lee do chain tests to recover the 2, then the teams
11. Group Captain Vladimir Gorchenski - in charge of the air wing, pissed with MArius, thinks he pulled rank with the brigadier
12. Depending on Kai vs Brigadier RP, may extend chit to level 3/4 for weapons

Thanks all, and see you next time! Once again though - comments, thoughts and feedback is very welcome!

This weeks smuggler writeup is now up and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57156726373964/

Apologies if this weeks writeup is a bit disjointed / not up to the usual quality - it's been an "interesting weekend" to say the least, in the chinese sense of the word.

But anyway - the team ended up waiting a month for Tads to get healed up, and did some training and skills improvement, and got their helicopter working ok. Ali (Tads) has learnt just how bad attribute failure is - especially when it's your body, and then you need to make body tests to recover from your wounds. The healing times were eyewatering, but fortunately as soon as she was concious, she could throw all her power into the heals, and sort that out considerably.

Tomorrow is going to be spent doing a map of some limestone caves I think, and working up the list of inhabitants for the smuggler base, and then working with the next person on my list as a call-in NPC to set them up on their next mission.

So, as usual, here are the notes from the session that led to the narrative:

• Tads talismongers the owl, with Shimazu and Kai helping - 3 success from Tads, none from the others, but no failures.
• After negotiations, 3 mags of Ex-Ex ammo for Aswons rifle.
• Inform the captain that they can ward the vehicles now with time, but they need materials or short duration
• Also offer to do obvious scanning of the brigade now they have 4 with masking.
• Captain wants to take advantage of this - mandatory health screening, will arrange for Friday. Walk past the admin block.
• Talk about the chopper range, putting barrels in the back with a spare load of fuel - Marius says no - too much like a bomb.
• Shimazu to drive the truck and trailer, while Marius flies the chopper. Marius has "certified" Shimazu to drive...
• Shimazu to drive, with Hunter, Kai and Tads to get access to the quarry first, then call in the chopper with Marius and Aswon.
• Discover the NSV has custom tripod and will be a bit of an arse to fit - requires a machine shop, takes half a day, fits the recoil dampers from the shipyard
• Planning to stay for 1 day, for the assensing. Captain says not to do the vehicles, part of their deception plan
• Get a 2nd hand ropey set of NVGs for Shimazu. Smell like an old PE kit.
• Marius asks some of the base staff what the group captain would like as a gift. He has a taste for Beluga Caviar.
• Warding team go to do the chopper - doing a F8, masking ward on the inside, non-breaking over doors (except back left door into cargo area) - 7 successes between the group.
• Tads goes for a night service, medal award
• Assensing - 8 successes between team to be certain there are no more, though they do spot a couple of sick people
• Aswon takes the snipers onto the range with reg ammo on the range to give them a go on his gun. Aswon does well in ad-hoc competition with the rest
• Nadia checks for places to buy caviar - finds it's going for 6-7K per jar.
• Planning to use create food to try and duplicate, testing with Aswon via mind link to get image of food to try and replicate blind. 4 successes on F2 mind link. 2 successes on create food with link up, then 9 with link down - makes giraffe kebobs, but they don't taste quite right.
• Just under 600km in a straight line from the base to the quarry
• Marius goes to officer’s mess to buy 4 bottles of vodka, 2 for Aswon, 2 as gift for the group captain. Aswon gifs to the 2 grunts who had to do PT with them to start off with
• Load as much stuff as possible from the truck into the chopper
• Tads does a last tour of the infirmary (gets everyone out of the infirmary) and thanks the doc, then goes to the armour and gets some 5/3 armour for her and Nadia.
• Marius tries to manufacture an outer covering for the machine gun to make it look like a fire hose
• Kai check to see if they can get the chopper officially transferred to them - no, completely off the books. Aswon asking if they can get rigger gear - no.
• Marius changes the chopper transponder, computer check vs 6s - 1.
• Marius get in touch with Milo, Tads asks to pass on thanks for her ID, Marius asks for addition of a pilot’s licence, and details of the chopper, will get back to him on price.
• Marius gives the vodka to the GC - passes etiquette check, good look, good flying, Marius thanks him for putting up with the inconvenience.
• Saturday morning
• Heading back to Volgograd - Shimazu passes handling check, uneventful journey back, he remembers to get the card before they go.
• Head up the new Silk Road to Sebryakov
• BCQ quarry - guard, combat shotgun, quarry closed - passes the card, scanned, ok - buzzes in.
• Down the runway, 10m wide, 1.5km long, demo shack at the bottom, new guard, directed to new arrivals
• Stop session as they arrive at the quarry

Smuggler session 103 is now available at : https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57193019043964/

Apologies to anyone waiting - we had a week off gaming due to RL stuff, and I've been really busy at work and with LARP stuff. Still - we're all done now, so here it is.

The team have arrived into the smuggler base, had their orientation and met one new team, and two old teams, and done a tiny bit of exploring, and started to work on a deal to get their helicopter upgraded.

Here are the notes from the session:

• Truck team at the quarry, move over to the spot
• Guy walks out of the wall - Tads assenses, gets details of phantasm. Magic background - work out that something weird is going on.
• Kai sends message asking for ETA, warning to spool up. Talks to Oric, tells them about 2nd vehicle, eta 2 hours, oh - right, I'll come back in 2 hours, tell them to land just there. - gives a bearing, height and time window
• Tads - can you research my medal. Some details about formal diners
• Kai - observe quarry for protocols, tops of valley
• Tads - magical research stuff
• Hunter - sleeping
• Chopper team - NOTE flying, ground clutter, vehicles stealth+sig+NOTE=11. Air defence rolls... a 12.
• Radio call - Kilo 429 Alpha, Marius gives a valid format code, but made up. FP files at Samara. Go around the bubble, will use up too much time - handling check vs 5s, 4 success - no problem
• Chopper comes in to land - handling on 8s (dust) - 1. Powers down, starts to cover engine intakes and such like.
• VIshtar - unusual 2 vehicles, how much armour on the bird, fine, description of tunnel, natural tunnel
• Briefing from Oric
• ASk for rigger gear, SL2
• Kai - what about the defences - Oric, how do you see em?
• Told about the rep deal
• Kai - you mentioned "she" - Aswon - we have special skills.
• Kai - pays for 3 days in advance, 1650
• Towed into pod 6. Work out range to the ranch - 1250km.
• Tads - if we can go the ranch - can we hide it? No - but when it's rigged, we can land it in a very tight space
• Marius - and when we kill the monkeys, we can build our secret underground base,
• Aswon - we need to get concealment from a spirit at the ranch - until Tads can learn silence and stuff
• Get the ipad 1 with the weird security program - freeware, Marius 2, Nadia 2, Hunter 4
• Check out the leader board 1 = Paladin, 2 = Zephyr, 3 = Rocket, 4 = Half-pint, 5 = 69pp
• Shimazu passive aura reading - 2 6s
• Checking the area - 2 each, 8 in total - background is too even, must be manufactured some way
• Check the arena - bgc 0, - Aswon, they have active magical presence - the team could ward here
• Go to 3, see Mamma bear, hellos, you staying, 3 days at least, others are out - out out, probably overnight, bad spark plug, ask about the boss, just treat her nice, marius helps with the spark plug,
• go to the hall, gnome and phys-ad are eating from the same bowl, also in the hall are the zephyr crew - stop eating and stare, shimazu psych test - they're worried. Tads remembers that they had the zephyr card
• Shimazu goes for food, then goes back to Kai for money, gets money from Hunter. Kai asks for all red - mega hot. Shimazu - green, put 100ny in tab
• Oric comes back in. See Kai, "who's the deputy" Shimazu "I'm the expert on leeches", Kai can't talk. Aswon, we have have maps of the dekita area, pistol ammo, Marius gets a "nice fizzy drink" for Kai. Aswon - we can do warding. and we have a spirit talker. Chopper good for ten tonnes.
• About the warding - how much *funny move, cover eye* can you do? TEam can do about 1800 m cubed
• Can you do one as powerful as the front door -yes, for about 6 weeks, or perm if you have materials,
• Ok - so what do you do - you move stuff,
• Tads makes a steak, he chops a bit and cooks,
• Aswon - cooking test, fizzy drink won't help, does nothing. Shimazu assenses "suffering"
• Aswon listening on zephyr - team recommend them, focus on the cleanup.
• Tads makes reindeer yogurt for Kai
• Vishtar comes back - got zephyr to vouch for them
• Talk to cookie for the foods. Tads wants to find someone who knows about caviar
• What is the power source - the generator on the shovel
• Marius - also probably have scrubbers - others in team - nah, limestone
• Send the guys over first thing in the morning with the rigger gear

I've worked out a bunch of detail for the smuggler quarry base, to give me some rules / framework to build on, and add context the any bitching or moaning from the other teams:

1. Berthing rights are based on environmental damage as a flat fee (electric / solar = free, methane = 100, gas/diesel=250, jet=500 , and then a size based charge per day (Cars/SUV 50, Trucks / Lorries / small aircraft = 100, double trucks / apcs / large aircraft = 200)
2. The board shows who is in what pod, and messing with it is a banable offense.
3. The pods have a double yellow/black hazard line at the entrance - entering a pod without the renters permission is a banable offense
4. No gunplay or offensive magic in the caves - banable. No theft or fraud - banable. Fighting is discouraged, but nobody is ever to be left bleeding or deteoriating. Fights are encouraged in the arena.
5. Do not mess with a stalagtite, stalagmite or helictite - on pain of death
6. Pods have electric, lighting, macerator toilets, sinks, microwave ovens, basic bunks and a lock store - the quarry boss has an override code.
7. Left luggage for another team is available from 10NY per day, depending on size.
8. There is a small work-crew lead by Victor Smuushki, capable of work on most types of vehicles, from 250Ny per day+parts. They have a tow truck, loaded with tools, some mobile lifting equipment and basic gear, with an average skill rating of 4. There are four of them if they need to gang up on stuff.
9. There is a job wanted / offers / crew sought board, a bunch of very old stuff on there, and random coded messages.
10. There are small tow-trucks for towing aircraft to caverns, 5NY each way.
11. The guy doing the intro is Oric Vishtar, human, male, Essence 5, headware computer/dj/ram/cybereyes/commlink - he is the operations officer for the base, does the tour for all newbies and explains they start off with a basic rep, can earn a higher rep by bringing in required cargo (bottled water, food, med supplies, intel such as codes, map updates, etc - and lose rep by leaving a mess, starting fights, bringing trouble to the door. When they get their rep up high enough, they get an intro card to give to another team. If their rep goes down to far, they get shot down...
12. Pods are assigned in order of rep / booking in time, and base facilities are booked in the same way.
13. The rec hall is neutral ground, as are general tunnels in the base.
14. In an alcove near the exit are high-vis, hats, breather masks and wellies - they must be worn outside in the quarry.
15. The main entrance is nearly 80m wide and 30m high, resulting from when a blast exposed the cave system. It stretches back several hundred metres into the main accessway, opening up into a chamber
16. The passages to areas 1-4 are each 60m wide, while 5 and 6 are 40m and 35m respectively, with overal heights in the 15-20m range.
17. Side passages range from 20m down to 3-4m, and wind and twist around columns and pillars, and tend to have more vertical variance than the rest which are generally uniform.

Next week I'm going to throw a rapid reaction rescue at them, and give them a chance to earn some rep with the base. Week after we've probably got a week off again (it's just after a big LARP event for three out of six of the players, so we probably need some recovery time as we're all getting old now) and then it will be time to bring in the new guest NPC to give them their next mission.

As usual, feedback, questions and suggestions are all very welcome.

This weeks writeup is now published and can be found at : https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57226525798964/

A week off due to the Gathering, but we should be back to a more normal schedule now, at least until we get close to Christmas. The session was also cut off in a strange place as one of the team had to dive off (Marius) to get the last train home, which prevented us from getting things resolved - I don't normally like leaving things mid-fight. Sure, end a session with the immortal phrase "roll for initative" to let them know the ambush has been sprung - but not mid fight. Meh - sometimes these things happen.

Next week then will be getting Monty back into the base and clearing things up, and then hopefully I have another person Skype/Discording in to the team to be the new NPC for them and give them an offer.

Her brief description: Ludmilla Kuzmina, currently based out of Gorodets, a small city just north of Nizhny Novgorod. You are a 35 year old, human female, daughter of a wealthy oil and heavy industry tycoon. You live in a hydro-electric station on the edge of town, straddling the Volga river: https://goo.gl/maps/CG8CkX12C9sMDvG36.
She's going to be a bit dark, edgy and slightly psychotic, but a very good employer in terms of cash and gear opportunities. I want the team to feel slightly uneasy around her though - she's going to have a whole "mad frankenstein" vibe going on.

The NPC is going to be played by a friend from our Live Role Play organisation, and I have no doubts she's going to make life very interesting for the team.

So, here's the actual events of the session. If you read between the lines, you'll see that there's a very specific order of events. Pretty much, from me at the head of the table, I went clockwise around - Hunter, Kai, Aswon, Marius, Shimazu, Tads - one action each, then the bad guys, rinse and repeat, rather than actually rolling initative. In some ways this penalises the players with the higher reactions - but balanced against this is that it keeps people a lot more involved in the turn sequence and things moving along more rapidly. I tend to use this method if there's a real mix of engagement distances (like there was here, with the snipers being 250m+ away at the top of the hill) and methods. If the whole team are in close quarters or a knife fight, we'll do the normal stuff. But when there's potentially lots of room for movement, and "waves" of bad guys coming in, then this seems to flow better. It also means that the *bad* guys only really get one initative phase as well, which can be a blessing. As usual though, there's a bit of GM handwavium going on - so if the sniper shot twice and then had an empty mag for instance, I'd allow them to swap mags no bother, even though they were "out of actions", just because they should have had two - and there's no real time pressure / danger for them - while someone strapped into the vehicle being driven at ramming speed in the middle of the combat is under a lot more stressful conditions and will get to do less "free" stuff.

Anyway, here's the brief notes (and they're very cryptic in places, I admit. For reference RR=karma re-roll, and "boom splat" is deadly damage+overdamage :

• start off with vishtar briefing, aswon, hunter and marius goes for truck, rest to entrance. marius turns back with distance brief,
• marius into the mining truck 2 success, heads up with Kai, Shimazu and Tads.
• spot the car and 3 guys at the bottom of the switch back
• Marius takes the short high risk route. Tads F6 mountain, 2 successes - gets a "weird" result, doesn't care, stunballs the bikers,
• handling check on 8s for marius, rr - 2, str check on 4s to hang on.
• Aswon driving the truck, Hunter arming up, set the truck to jcb yellow
• Tads sends spirit to accident the last biker
• muscle car approaching, marius another 2 successes, Tads does trid-d of mudslide
• Kai spots the spirit over the top of the car, gathering power.
• Spirit goes mental on the top of the car.
• Aswon and Hunter about halfway up the runway
• Marius offroad again, RR, 3
• Muscle car fires, random - marius, 1 hit, 3 round burst smg - 9S - soaked with ease,
• Shimazu envelopes Marius for protection - just before the shotgun hits - 3 round burst, 13D - gets 2, RR, 3, buys 1 for an L.
• Marius 2 handling check, goons loose control on the muscle car and spin, marius goes after the bikers
• Hunter - shoots at SMG in muscle car - dead. Driver takes an S and blows out the window
• Kai get out of the car, Q6,
• Aswon - wait for the spin
• Marius - aiming for a spin on the vehicle to trash the bikes
• Shimazu - had a shot but missed.
• Tads - waiting for a stunball
• Aswon - decapitates with a called shot to the head
• Bikers fire - do an L to the mining truck
• Back around
• Hunter at a biker, 1,RR, 2, one dead, change targets, second down,
• Kai sprints to the red car, spots and assesses - monty in overflow.
• Tads interrupts and leaps from the car, fails quickness check, soak 4S impact from the fall, gets 4, takes an L
• shotgun Dude stands up to shoot kai in the back, aswon takes him out with a held action
• A,H, M - perception check
• Hunter shooting last biker - down
• Kai - trauma patch the dude - passes test, stabilises
• Aswon - getting big gun
• Marius - heading for the bulldog head on
• Shimazu - int test, puts seat belt on both marius and him
• Tads, runs to Monty, assesses
• Bulldog goon - shoots Marius, 9s, soaked, 2nd burst misses,
• Hunter, aiming - LAW, shout to MArius to avoid
• Kai, calls Vishtar - do you have a medic. Yes - she's with you, get on with it you fucking noob.
• Aswon - aims for radiator, 2, RR, 4 - 50 cal EXEX, call shot to avoid armour, 9D vs vehicle, 2 on the soak.
• Marius - aiming for a PIT on the back quarter.
• Shimazu - fires at the goon, misses,
• Tads - drops trid, does Heal, Essence 5, 2RR, 2 successes, drop to S+3
• Goon in door - 9D to Shimazu, soaked, 9S 2nd burst, soaked to an L
• Hunter - still aiming the LAW
• Kai - gets monty out to a place of safety
• Aswon - aims for back wheel of bulldog, 1, RR, 3 - 9s damage, driver buys 1 takes M, wheel explodes,
• Marius - ram test on 5s, 4 - goes over, slides along the road, roof towards Aswon and Hunter.
• Shimazu spots another muscle car and 4 bikes
• Tads - looks for spirit, it's going for the sliding bulldog.
• Hunter - change clip, full auto supression fire
• Kai - check the vehicle, crappy auto gear, grabs the rifle.
• Aswon spots the bikers coming, shoots front biker front wheel, flips and kills 1
• Marius, Handbrake turn, 6s, 2 - does a J turn,
• Shimazu - remain terrified
• Tads - helping kai
• Driver climbs out, spirit grabs and hulks.
• Hunter - Motorbike - takes 11s, but mostly soaks and passes knockdown, 2nd burst dead.
• Kai - assesses monty - ok if gentle
• Aswon - shoot a biker wheel, boom, splat
• Marius - ram the guys getting out the back, team soak 4m, Marius L, Shimazu RR ok, then reverse out to head to Kai.
• Shimazu spot the last guy in the bulldog - shoots, does an M.
• Tads - delaying
• bodyguards shoot - 11s on Marius, buys 3, takes an L.
• 2nd bodyguard shoots - the mining truck - takes an S
• Boss, shoots shimazu, 9s APDS, 1, RR, 2, take a M,
• Hunter - bodyguards, #1, takes an S. 2nd burst - kills him
• Kai - close the distance with Monty on Marius
• Aswon - shoots other bodyguard, takes an S.
• Marius - head for Kai.
• Shimazu - shoots at boss - misses
• Have to call it - time

Looking forward to next week - getting Monty better, and then getting the next mission.

Session 105 is up, and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57242963183964/

The team didn't appear to be that interested in Monty and his story, or digging into things further, so I let him be picked up by one of the other teams, to reappear later on as some interest, and instead moved on to introducing the next NPC and her quest - taking them into Yakut to go talismongering, knowing that a war with Russia is brewing...

Notes from the session, as usual - the "behind the scenes" for the narrative writeup.

1. The boss and the driver will try to reverse out, calmly and slowly, into the darkness, having gotten a good look at some of the team. If they get away, back burner until later. If not, they should get geeked pretty easily.
2. Boss - do we take them - no, let them go. Aswon - face away, I have you covered.
3. Clean up. The police will arrive in about 60 seconds, just a patrol car at first, then some more units, an ambulance and fire truck, then recovery vehicles.
4. Aswon - get out of there in 60 or less
5. Tads looks for a bike - fails,
6. Marius, shimazu and dude heading up the switchback, with Kai
7. Tads warns the spirit about the police, spirit starts walking towards the police car,Tads - DO NOT attack the police car
8. Tads - tells Kai to get Rocky to stop, Kai tries to commanding voice, listens, but doesn't stop.
9. Spirit goes to talk to the police car
10. Marius handling check on 5s - 3, vehicle is battered and needs extensive work
11. One copper collecting guns, the other does sweeping
12. Coppers cleaning up, Tads watching for magical investigation, recovery truck comes.
13. No forensics going on - Hunter police procedures
14. Kai called vishtar - where do you want him, bring him to the rec area. Shaman summoned a spirit - don't worry about it.
15. Kai biotech on shimazu - stable, needs a better area.
16. Tads query about the spirit again, relay to Kai, kai checks, dont worry about it.
17. Tads goes to apologies to the spirt, patronising pat on the head.
18. Aswon pulls back from the gate, then back to the entry, nice and slowly
19. Monty comes around - just about. Tries to get his gun, Kai talks to him, reassures him, then he relaxes.
20. In the rec area are the Zephyr, Mamma bear, dwarf+gnome, 69pp
21. Aswon parks the truck near the rec area
22. Patrick messages Kai - available yes
23. Kai tries biotech on monty - no change
24. Kai biotechs on Shimazu, drops him to M
25. Kai fixes Tads, removes 1 box of physical
26. Kai calls Patrick, Patrick asks if ok to introduce Ludmilla
27. Kai checks with Vishtar - ok to stick in a pod, sure, your pod
28. Grimvald checks if Monty has had morphine, gets him a beer, gets his accordion out, centres, assenses Monty
29. Aswon sidles to Monty who were you running from
30. Monty talks in french, tells his story, Hunter translates. Aswon says "your gun is fine"
31. Hunter translates loud enough for everyone to hear.
32. Vishtar blames Marius for damage to the truck, Marius says there was no choice, discussion about bulldog, Vishtar says if you get me the bulldog, we're square. Marius and Kai head off to go do that.
33. Aswon picks up on the muttering from Karvak. Listens to the music along with the rest.
34. Kai and Marius go back outside, observe the scene, then go down.
35. Pay the "permit" cost of 400 Nuyen, the cops go to break LOS in the industrial estate, Marius hooks up the step van, and they drive back to the quarry, check the van, suspiciously clean
36. Aswon and Hunter find a sheet of wood, take Monty back to the pod, Nadia lights them up.
37. Put Monty in the chopper
38. Relay that there were a fight, she checks if Marius was ok, Shimazu
39. Nadia wants food - Shimazu says no, Kai says yes
40. Hunter actually goes for food, gets mix,
41. Ludmilla calls for Kai, keeps getting cut off
42. He goes outside, gets the job, tier 1+fuels, accepts
43. details about the plant, sharp serrated leaves, large temp differential
44. Kai does not brief that night
45. Everyone gets a good nights sleep
46. Go for breakfast - Tads levitates him to the rec area
47. Monty offers them the 5k on his credstick, as they saved his life.
48. He will look for a new team / job
49. Rocket and team offer to buy team breakfast, Hunter asks Rocket to swing by, he has a gift for him
50. Tads talk to chef, what do you want - steak, raw!
51. Aswon invites topshot to the pod
52. Rocket offers to take Monty on
53. Kai mentions possible job to Marius, Marius planning on moving the living amenities from the truck to the chopper.
54. Marius - int check - can move the living accommodation into the back of the chopper
55. Kai explains the job, Aswon says "you didn't negotiate for double pay, you know the war zone..."
56. Trying to work out ranges, how much fuel / cf to sacrifice,
57. Aswon calls Sofi, leaves a message - got intel about war in Yakut, anything reciprocal appreciated
58. working out fuel stops and routes - TCL, caspian sea, tashkent, mongolia - dash in and out
59. Aswon and Tads working out the plants, neither have heard of it directly, the temp difference makes it very unusual
60. Aswon got a 22, singing soulweed, many shared elements with plants that have a somatic effect on gene-expressing.
61. Thinking of stopping at the vehicle dealer in tashkent for a swamp buggy
62. Tads concern about magical defences in the area
63. plan to get the chopper to within 10km of target, then specialist stealth vehicle for final insertion,
64. Aswon asking kai - please ask for more cash, and some up front to cover the costs
65. Marius - plans to do a) fuel tank, b) rigger gear, c) smart link nose turret, d) drone racks.

I'd also worked out a rough value of loot if they'd decided to compel the coppers to leave, or muscled their way in on the salvage operation at all.

Possible loot

• 4 X bikes - Fiat Freedoms (copy of Hyundai Offroaders), guys wearing 1/1 synthleather jackets over jeans and tshirts, armed with Ceska Black scorpions and one spare mag - about 12K per "set" new
• Muscle Car - Citroen Xhen (Toyota Elite), synthleather jackets again, better quality clothing, One Ares II pistol with laser sight, two Uzi III smgs, one Tsar Eliminator (copy of mossberg CMDT) - about 67K
• 4 bikes - as above
• Bulldog security version, engine has severe damage and needs almost a total rebuild, structure is not too bad though, along with another Tsar and 4 Uzi IIIs - about 55K
• Another muscle car, Fiat Executive, run flat tyres, boss has 13 rounds of Pistol APDS in his Ares Predator III, 2 X AK-98 with laser sights, standard ammo, and 4 more bikes - about 70k

See you next week folks - where the writeup may be a little boring, unless you like the bit in the A-team where they make their cabbage throwing death machine

Smuggler session 106 is now written up and can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57261325043964/

Down one of the players again at the last moment for some reason, we decided to play on, but tried not to have his character do too much that would be massively game affecting.
Fortunately, a bit of RP backed up with some etiquette rolls was simple enough to do to get free berthing rights for a few days, and the rest of the characters took care of the rest.

They decided to use up some of their precious cargo space to put extra fuel tanks in, taking the chopper from 3000 to 4000 litres, and improving their range to about 1350km. I'd done some reading on current gen extra fuel tanks to try and get a basis for the install times and costs, and the relative difficulties of the job. So, with 1000l of extra fuel, they've lost 1000kg of load and 200 CF - but they've still got a good chunk left. The smartlink 2 for the nose turret, rigger adaption and drone rack is all fairly simple stuff and straight out of rigger 3.

They've also picked up a bunch of extra detail on the plant they're after, and the specific difficulties they will have in moving it about - it's very sensitive to background count.

Here's the notes from the session - quite short, as there was a lot of conversation about stuff which generated a fair bit of dialogue in this weeks writeup, rather than action events.

• Marius - plans to do a) fuel tank, b) rigger gear, c) smart link nose turret, d) drone racks.
• Base tech team get 7 successes on rebuilding the mining truck - takes about 2 days.
• Explain difficulty with drone racks and rotor racks
• Give options for fuel tanks
• Discussion - generally go for the large tank, and want the package with migration of the drone rack from the truck
• talk about the ward - put on the inside to avoid visibility
• Marius puts in 15k of cash to the vehicle -
• Maintenance team advise theres two days beofre work can start anyway
• Aswon calls Spook, spook a bit annoyed. Needs a consultation with a parabotanist. Asks for country - tundra/yakut/russia. clarify not HK/china. Hangs up no goodbye
• Hunter cleaning Rockets gun and getting it pristine.
• Tads checks asian geography, finds map location Ozero Pil’tanlo, get map view, discussion of what defences might be like
• Kai negotiate with mechanics - they say talk to vishtar
• Pod 1 now empty - The Paladin
• 69pps there - say hello. Have you seen vishtar? Ask Cookie - Vish is busy, couple of hours.
• Rocket comes, Hunter gives gun back, very confused, talk about the mining truck
• Compare rifles. Where did it come from. Grateful employer. Can you hook us up. Do you want a job? Accchhhh... maybe in the future
• Get both numbers - I'll call your boss in the future
• Topshot arrives, stealths in. Wanna show you something, it's not a cock is it.
• Check rifle - pah british, hey, purdey - no its history, uk shit silencers, no, try Giat - great silencers, shit cars
• shame we can't shoot - we can, explains about night shoots.
• she whispers to rocket, I'll be back, jogs out. comes back with 2 av rounds
• Vishtar talking to Kai - try to get better rates, no charge for extra days, no sliding down the work queue
• Spook calls back, Han Lee Sook, Geomancer / parabotanist calls back to Aswon
• you have questions, i have questions, describe species
• Aswon - what do we need. Temperature difference, positive background count, grows on a mana line, if they are aware they will guard it strongly. Don't take it in a BGC. Dragons spine - they are sharp. Where is this documented? #Myths and legends - my question for you, can you tell me where you were when the job was done, and if it was atop a mana line.
• What was your price - learning new questions, taking a gamble, as you westerners would say
• tAds - this could take months, just to make you aware
• Marius calls Milo - it's been a few days, "hello trouble", made any headyway, of course, mates rates in the future, sends 4 X transponder IDs. Offer info on tads ID - good god, what have you been doing, never mind. Knuckles crack, run on the ministry of justice
• Large fuel tank ordered - failed on first availability roll, have to up price, but then 2 successes, 19.5k
• Kai - allocated 5k for tundra gear
• Plan for two days
• Hunter - computer searches on the tundra, plants,box for the back of the truck, routes, calls in to Julius to get overheads - nothing until sunday afternoon, stag do
• Marius, Nadia - working on the living bay, and drone racks (6 hours (32 hours, 5 success))
• Shimazu - warding with Aswon and Kai on the chopper, 8 weeks of F8 on the chopper ward, spray varnished
• Tads - Shimazu weapon design - 5 days effective
• Looking for bulldog step van sized to fit in the back of the chopper, rigger adaption +, nav+, at least 4 seats, cf of about 10, fuel stops, and petty cash
• temperature box for transport, asking for around 50k upfront.

Tomorrow night will be busy writing up the details of an off road 4 X 4, a lightweight hovercraft, a swamp skiff and a boat/buggy to give them some options on what they want to purchase to cover the last leg of the journey in.

Bah - last minute cancellation from Hunter and Shimazu, so no game this week. Hopefully back to plan next week!

Smuggler session 107 story is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57297275168964/

So, back to the game after a week off, a little bit of a recap for people to get back into the swing of things, and we were off. In essence, they've spent a good chunk of their cash on upgrading the helicopter, realised they are running low on cash, and have gone back to the Johnson to get some cash up front. Tsk tsk - not very professional, so they've lost a little bit of respect from her - but then gained some back by having a bunch of information on the plant and how to get a live one to her - so she's gone with it.

Other than that, they've started doing some warding - and with 4 of them magically active, and now being initiated multiple times, they have a good chunk of dice to throw at things, so they're able to put up some high force wards without too much trouble.

They've also seen a few of the first wave of teams ship out, and some others ship in - and I'm trying to expose them to the other teams enough for them to really get a feel for the massive spectrum they're on from people for whom this is all a game and lots of fun, to some real low life psychotic nasties that would sell them to Tanamous in a heartbeat.

As usual, here are the notes from the writeup - I hope they make sense. There was lots of chatter around the table this week, and it made it kind of hard to keep track of what was going on between the various pairs / triples of people talking and planning.

1. Date Monday 12/04/2060, Location 50.10234, 43.23581
2. Tads - what are we going to do with the truck chassis and the trailer
3. Aswon - I thought we were going to drive back to the ranch - but that's a long way, and we have a job in the tundra now, in the opposite direction
4. Check maps - about 1400km to the ranch, probably 2-3 days travel, then could get air/train back here.
5. Hunter - results of vehicle search
6. Aswon - wants hovercraft, but can't afford
7. Tads - we can always go steal this from some bad guys. Aswon - but that's another job, that we're not getting paid for.
8. Kai gets Hunter to check on shares - 9500 after fees - doesn't sell.
9. Kai thinks not to take the truck back - too much chance for something to go wrong, too far.
10. Marius remembers that there is left luggage - there must be storage space
11. Kai - how far are we going - hunter, map check, about 2300km. Aswon, Ludmilla said she could probably help
12. Aswon - describes the refrig / heated box needed, we might want potted plants, seriously, make it nice, keep the area astrally clean, talk to it,
13. Aswon - detailing the gear needed for tundra survival, as well as the plant box
14. Shimazu - should we get more boxes and more plants
15. aswon - yeah, but I don't think we have the skills to make best use of it, for what it's rumoured to do
16. Nadia suggestion - she, Tads, Hunter and Shimazu take truck back to farm, she stays there with the gear, the other 3 fly back. Tads gets 2 days in her lodge to work. Aswon and Marius stay with the chopper, Aswon can pick us up from the airport when we are back.
17. Marius - hmm, putting the truck back together in the ranch. Work out the gear list.
18. Do some research on the soil types, spades needed, cammo gear.
19. Talk to Vishtar - agree 50ny per day for the truck and trailer
20. Mustapha / Zephyr, gives the police chip in a case, Kai gives to hunter, they find the details and the location of the island.
21. Leaving the truck here to store, as it's only 700 Nuyen for 2 weeks, the estimated time for the job
22. Marius studying the flight plans, rules for flights, sensor dead spots.
23. Hearing based perception check - Marius hears best (2), Aswon, Tads and Kai (1) got something funny. None of the work crew notice
24. Aswon checks astrally - slightly positive, nothing new
25. Vishtar taken to new cave near rec area, 20m X 30m, new - Tads spell design, massive shape earth,
26. Discussion, do we go high on this - Vishtar says go big, we will provide the mats, 8
27. Vishtar says will you do the public entrance (weds) and the rec area (thurs) in exchange for 10 units of warding mats
28. Kai calls Ludmilla - asks for box, Tara airport, about 500km south, I have a man there.
29. Asked for 50k up front - agreed. Offers to send info gathered so far, ooh, you have info already, yes please. Gets passed on to suspicious lackey, comment about boss - very paranoid, worried going to get shot in the leg, click
30. Stripes arrives with sat link, Gemini doing bodyguard stuff, Kai offers steak, smiles.
31. Tuesday - warding, F8 on the new storage area, 4 successes, materials are all crystal / gems
32. Zephyr and Bandit team have left,
33. Kai asks Tads to make Steak for the Mondrian team and deliver - 7 successes, no drain, go to pod 1 and shout
34. Meets Nelly - wine, mead, um VIMTO. Fruit basket, and meat, cheese, SHRIMP! Kai - you're getting better
35. Warning to rest of team about noodles, rest of the team think about going to the rec area
36. Tuesday night rec area - Shimazu, Marius and Nadia, and Kai, see bogbuster crew on 3 tables and bosses on 1 table
37. Marius eavesdrops - end of season, going to the seaside, whores and drink, wait for the next season to start
38. Shimazu - assenses, sees toxic shaman, gets an idea on crew. Shimazu rolls etiquette - is this rude (1,2,3), Yeah, it's fine!
39. Ivan - comes over, better than you, heads back.
40. Stop there.

What's coming up for the team? Well, the Bogbusters are one of the "nasty" teams, so I'm thinking of having a couple of them run into one of the team in the tunnels somewhere, start a fight (against the base rules) and see how things go - and then have a 'fight club' kinda scene in the gladiator pit, and give someone like Shimazu a chance to go to town on someone. Depending on how the scene goes, they might end up owning another team a favour for helping to save one of the team members, or something like that. Otherwise it's a push on to getting the warding done and the chopper ready to fly, then having them go off to Yakut to brave the war zone and see if they can steal some rare magical plants from a nation controlled by spirits and secret police shapeshifters. What could possibly go wrong? *grin*

And, I have no idea if this will interest you at all, but I was curious so I wanted the stats for my own use regardless.
Since Episode 99, I started making sure that rather than leave MS Word open, and come do however many words in a session, then have a break, then return later - rinse and repeat until done, I instead made sure I closed word each time, and reopened for each writing session - so the "edit time" was reasonably accurate.

That gave me a word count and edit time for each episode, so I could see roughly how many WPM I was knocking out in the narratives.

Episode, Wordcount, Edit time, Words per minute
099, 7667, 226, 33.9
100, 8315, 253, 32.8
101, 9317, 283, 32.9
102, 7277, 264, 27.5
103, 8985, 264, 34.0
104, 6471, 192, 33.7
105, 8231, 230, 35.7
106, 7188, 200, 35.9
107, 8934, 254, 35.1

Average of 8042 words in 241 minutes at 33.55 word per minute.
I am so glad I took the time at school to learn to type!

This weeks writeup is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57322186443964/

This week was one I thought about a bit - Nadia was going to be assaulted and near-raped as a driver for Marius and hopefully the rest of the team to have a confrontation of some sorts with the Bogbuster crew - but how much should be shown, and how much should be left to the imagination. In the end I decided to go for a soft touch, and leave it up to the players to do all the running.
My generic plan for the encounter was:

1. Tuesday night - Nadia goes for "something" if possible, otherwise Weds morning breakfast run.
2. 3-4 bogbuster crew, assault Nadia+escort. Try for surprise knockout punch on escort, abduct Nadia
3. Busted - but team if appropriate, or Gemini - flashbang and some headware recording of the "guilty party"
4. Fight in the pit
5. "Byk" - the ox. Orc, bald head, very pale green/yellow, pronounced brow, 2m, 180kg, Essence 2.85
6. Orc street fighter, hand razors, titanium bone lacing, dermal sheath 3, 1h spur
7. B15 Q5, S6, C2, I3, W4, R4, Init 1D6+4, CP6, 3 Impact, 1 Ballistic, Str+4M stun HTH, Str+4M Phys spurs
8. Brawling 5, Psychology 1 (mocking 3)

I knew that once the players realised something was up, there was going to be a lot of action and reaction, so there wasn't much need for a lot more prep than this...

Here are the notes:

1. Tuesday night, back to pod, refuse bait
2. All go for a run, see zephyr gone, Half pint in for breakfast
3. Tads makes steak for breakfast
4. Back to pod, then warding rolls for the rec area and tunnels - 3 - obviously put off my the bogbuster crew
5. Hunter+Marius - int checks on 6. Realise that Nadia is missing.
6. Hunter - following his nose - 6 successes. Down the tunnels, hear the flashbang but not enough to distinguish
7. Spot Gemini carrying unconcious Nadia - She pulls out a shotty, stop the fuck there.
8. Marius - that's my partner. Gemini perception 16+14
9. Hunter back - Nadia needs first aid, come with us
10. Meet up - first aid - she got punched. Aswon - goes to vishtar. Nadia on 1 box of physical, Marius goes for the HMG, explosives and
11. Aswon - vishtar, someone attack one of our crew. lead to scene. clothes cut. want to take her back to pod.
12. Vishtar bothered, but can't say feelings. Haven't broken the rules technically.
13. Hunter and Shimazu back to pod, catch up with Marius, muttering "they're all fucking dead". Hunter gets armoured up. Shimazu "supervising".
14. Rest of team gets back. Kai - don't kill anyone. Marius ignores.
15. Wake nadia up - no memory of the event. Tads - mindlink, 8 successes - blur of motion
16. Gemini - delivers chip, tell mage to ask next time, aswon says thanks
17. Tads jogs after Gemini. Kai asks for a mindlink
18. Kai to Nadia > you had a bit of a fall, are you ok, you rest here
19. Tads to gEmini - thanks, don't do it again, mind link - no, I understand though, everything on the chip
20. Shimazu on the small back entrance, Aswon on the front. Review gemini footage
21. Kai asking MArius for review and expertise. Marius not very interested - tooling up the drones
22. Aswon and Hunter review - flash bang after effects
23. Marius all done with his drones - hmg on a vector thrust, lots of grenades
24. Aswon - I have you back, but we won't be welcome anywhere around here if we kick off
25. Kai, Shimazu, Tads head to rec area.
26. Tall, slender, very tall, long dark hair,
27. Working issues through - is she ok - yeah, off the record. ((dirty look)) where is "out of bounds"
28. Has this happened before - possibly a few times - must be lots of rocks
29. It's a health and safety issue - we'ld like to consult on that. Charisma check
30. Sounds like an rep challenge, arena in 1 hour, follow the rules - they get to set them
31. Marius is all ready, fires up the drones
32. Aswon - please wait for the others - it's suicide. If need be, well wait for them to leave and murder them all.
33. Marius still v.angry, but not on rage roids
34. Vishtar walks with the team, Shimazu and Tads perceiving. See rock spirit force 12-14 ish
35. Inconsequently talking on the way back - Kai, battle of wits - no unarmed
36. Vishtar issues challenge. See hovercraft
37. rules for the arena - get when there
38. Kai asks Nadia to get tea. She agrees
39. Kai meets workmen on the way to the fight, goes to pod 1 empty
40. All to arena
41. Kai to gemini - seen this before, only a couple, bogbusters - not really their style.
42. Vishtar arrives, challenge New fish vs bogbusters for supremacy
43. Kai winds him up - I don't speak ox, those aren't the rules,
44. who takes the challenge - Hunter.

This weeks writeup is now live and can be found at https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57357203038964/

So, off for a week due to two players being away - so no Shadowrun and a cheeky game of Warhammer 40K instead. But, back on this week, so here's the writeup.

I was worried going into this one that I was going to lose a character - but I shouldn't have worried.
The player decided to just throw karma at the problem, and bought his way to success, landing a fight changing first hit that put his opponent on the ropes, and it all went downhill from there. It has cost him a lot in terms of character progression - but on the other hand, he couldn't progress if he was dead, so he's still a nett winner.

So, the fight went smoothly for the team, and it was more about how they dealt with the aftermath. They humiliated the ex-kgb guy and his pet blood mage, so they have a serious enemy now with a massive bone to pick with them - this is going to haunt them in the future I think. Still, something to look forward to plotting and seeing how they react!

Here are the notes from the session to compare with the narrative:

• Afternoon, in the fighting pit.
• Kai check with Vishtar - rules, they set the rules as you issued the challenge, unarmed - so if he pops a spur he's cheating? Yes.
• Checks - offensive vs defensive, no magic cast into the arena.
• Kai checks with noodles - wine. My mage is busy, just want to check, casting spells is banned, what about a commanding voice - its fine? Confused – unknown technique.
• Hunter now stripping off armour. Trying to be calm
• Shimazu Psychology tests - Ox is a bully, enjoys taunting people, picking up on Hunter flaws
• Kai wanders up to Bogbuster general - 1ny bet, counters with boot licking+1ny.
• Roll for initiative, Ox=8, Hunter=16, Rolls 4 with 2 rerolls, then buys 20!. Ox gets 7 with one RR. Net of 17. 12D after staging. Get 1 success, spends his karma point to get 1, takes an S. Ox strikes back, loses by 3, takes a 6S, soaks to an M, on Serious+Moderate stun.
• Hunter last action, Ox=0, Hunter=4, but Ox soaked damage
• RR init, Ox=11, H=13, H=6+8Karma, O=0, Ox cops for a Serious wound after failing soak and overflowing into physical.
• Gemini smiling at the result, Stripes sipping champagne.
• Hunter checks with Vishtar - to the death? Nods.
• Kneel on the throat, checks on his phone while he's dying, then rips of the cock and balls to put on Kais boot.
• Astral checks for Tads and Shimazu - 5s, - Tads spots the mage licking lips and looking hungry
• BB captain Ivan. Tries to flip boot - Kai dodges. "I take all major credit cards"
• Vishtar - no rules broken, no magic in the arena.
• Ivan - you cheated - stomps off. Shimazu "man from the east say....puuuuuussssy?"
• Kai, commanding voice - stop right there. He does, troops bump into him.
• Tads - "hey vishtar, if they leave, is their accusation of cheating cast out, yeah?"
• Ivan turns to leave, "I said stop". Blood mage watching Kai, Shimazu watching him, along with Marius - ready.
• Kai gets blood and licks - Mage reacts a little but hides it.
• Kai to mage - "Try me". Tads, shields up. Mage astrally perceives, then drops it.
• "Swap pods and pay me the nuyen and it's quits." Vishtar out of side of mouth - they had to do that anyway.
• Ivan turns to leave, "Kneel before me!!!" 7 net successes. Kai walks through tunnel, boot to the face. Shimazu is behind him.
• Mage - all of you, back to the pod. Await us!
• Troops off, Kai takes boot, Ivan incoherent
• Tads to Vishtar - "nothing was agreed about the body, can you dispose of it properly", normally no, but this time, sure.
• Ivan scurries off after his men
• I guess you don't want to swap pods straight away, with your birds in bit. No. I'll go and swap you on the board, so people know. What is your team name? I have a suggestion - how about "into orbit"
• They keep "new fish"
• Vishtar - your pod will be watched, just in case - to astral members, don't worry
• Back to pod
• Marius to Aswon - I want you to build a bomb, Electromagnet, in a hole outside, hovercraft go over, stage one, attach, then explode outside the quarry
• Kai - get them to follow us, concentrate on us, blow up just outside as they are about to shoot
• Aswon -no, you will mess up the quarry operations
• Tads - and we don't want it to explode in town
• Kai going for a wander, takes Shimazu, wander past pod 5, no signs of life, rec area next
• Meet pennywise in the rec area, introductions, Kai buys dinner,
• Someone said we just missed an epic fight, well, not that epic, you want to see - shares phone footage
• Tads back in the pod - spots spirits, says hello to them, they shush her, back to building Shimazu's sword.
• Vishtar brings warding materials over, resume tomorrow, talk about letting everyone in, not everyone is nice.
• How often do people fight in the arena - mostly for practice, training or testing, not actual challenges.
• Tads - I don't want to swap pods, not go where there has been a blood mage.
• Aswon - not successful building the bomb, about halfway through
• Late that night, Bogbuster heads out
• Thursday morning
• Ward is up no problem. Hunter takes Nadia for a run/walk. Half way round - did it feel good. Blow by blow. Hunter to Nadia - you're one of the team. Gets a hug.
• Marius research - Zubr immune to mag mines.
• Kai goes to find Gemini, into pod 1, all there. Noodles plies with food, stripes warns about kgb connections, thanks to Gemini, you didn't have to do that... "yes I did, but tell your mage - one free shot"
• Shimazu taking the food - asks for sake, noodles - no idea, tries mulled wine, Shimazu likes. Stripes - we need to go to Japan, or somewhere with sake. Where do your people hang out? "Karaoke bars?" +1 karma
• Friday, warding main area, ward up.
• Tads - talking to Nadia. Is she ok - bit of counselling? Nadia is ok - solidarity of team and their reaction counteracts what nearly happened.
• Marius checks all the work done by the crew - spots some worrying bits of fatigue in the craft
• Kai passes over the details of Ivan to Marius, to do things with
• Saturday - last day, in the arena, ward up - everyone gets one.
• Repatriation Inc + Chrome flame arrive
• Meet Gank - teabagging, loves Hunter
• Meet Chrome flame - they're weird. Spot the free spirit.

This coming week, they should be leaving the quarry and starting their flight over to go look for the magical plant, and on their way to some fun meetings with border guards, shape shifters, magical spirits and other fun stuff.

Tom (Shimazu) got an instant karma award for making the whole table crack up with laughter for his "karaoke bars" comment. We have a thing called the "quote book", and the general rule is that if you can say something IC that makes the entire table break, it goes in the quote book, and your character gets an instant point of karma for humour and entertainment, to spend however you want. We have a book full of some quite funny moments now...

Smuggler session 110 is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57407691288964/

One player down this week due to illness, but we normally play on with one missing, unless their character is really critical to the story or in mortal danger for some reason. So, a bit of shopping and sorting out, and then they left the quarry and headed east, towards their border crossing point.

I dropped the location of a fuel stop near the new silk road to them that nicely broke the journey up, giving them another safe haven for their map, and also allowing me to introduce two additional teams to their dossier. I wanted a very different feel for this one, much more brutal and uncivilised, and with greater risk, but also a very different level of development in terms of facilities and opportunities.

Grigories Smuggler stop
An old service station on the old main road, before a new highway was built about a mile away carrying the New Silk Road. The old road withered and died, leaving a small community that just faded away. The remains of the old highway now act as the main runway for the stop, with enough room for a full landing providing the craft is not too wide and clips the central reservation.
Grigory is an old and badly shot up smuggler who cashed out after his craft was shot down and he lost half his team. He had enough money put by to purchase the land and buildings, and get some fuel tanks and seed money for operations, but it's not a lucrative thing.
This is a smuggler stop at the other end of operations - no powerful magic, no decent gear, no real power. Just a place to gas and go, with a flea-ridden inn attached to the service station, mediocre food from vending machines, and completely lawless. You park where you want, and look after your craft yourself. It mostly survives because people need a place to stop and rest, and to get gossip and have quiet meets.
Grigory - Dwarf street-sam, Essence 0.18. Badly wounded, he is reliant on a mobiltity chair as he can't afford to get his cyberlegs repaired. His ware has aged and deteriorated, and is now in poor condition - what was once wires 3 is now 1, his reaction enhancers are misaligned, his hearing has tinitus, his cybereyes display 2 or more modes at once, and he often has to plug in to get enough charge in his right cyberarm to make it through the day - as otherwise the gyro stabiliser flies out and starts to spin sadly. Russian, used to run as part of a prime crew until he ran into a unit of Red army missiles as they broke through the border to the west and their LAV took far too much damage.

That felt like a nice contrast to the reasonably civilised and controlled Quarry, with no magical backup, no repair crew, no social activity and a lack of rules enforcement.


As usual, here are the notes from the session, so you can see what really happened, rather than what I wrote up :-O

• Aswon - fear of Bogbuster waiting outside with a missile
• Kai - I think they had to go somewhere to do something, they won't be waiting. Aswon - want to bet? Shimazu - psych test, personality cult, breaking heads
• Aswon - lets get the 4 X 4. Arrange to do pickups Sunday
• Hunter - going to pod 1 to see Gemini, Noodles appraises him, gets him beer, thanks to Gemini, I don't think the sentiment is lost on you. Brauckworst? Heads out.
• Shimazu - calling sato to check in, over in Estonia, we're dabbling in Russia, anything you need - new customers? We'll keep our ears open. Tells team he's alive - tads, better be - got me into enough trouble.
• Aswon call spook - strange echo, you in the bathroom. Going off grid, if I'm not back in a month worry - I'd hate to lose my investment.
• Repatriation inc turn up at the pod, kai lets them in. Sorry about gank - he was overcome by meeting with a superstar. Get details of Repatriation Inc. Doc - very dry humour. Get saito's number from shiamazu
• we came from turkestan, via grigories, then a run to here
• What is grigories - explain. They stay for a while, swap stories, then head off.
• Kai - vishtar - checking that there is no loose ends, informs of plans, gets asked for gas/soy on the way back
• Aswon - plans for chemical flavouring for magical foods, Hunter chemistry - 14+5, aswon 9+4+2, work out what the questions might be.
• Sunday morning - Aswon playing the Hunter game, is awful at it. Kai asks vishtar if he has any more requests for warding, to let them know - is the boss please? She's not displeased...
• Sunday - 25k on UAZ vehicle, 5k on winter supplies and clothing. 1K on plants and hydroponics
• Kai to tads - what do you need from a magical point of view, 5 days for sword design, then orricalcum making time. then enchanting, so another month, then 20 days for my foci - so about 4 months
• Shopping is uneventful, get all the stuff back
• Kai and Shimazu going to pod 4 - chrome flame, hands over business card to Chrome-Flame.
• Does the pre-flight and gets ready for take off. Kai - can we do astral scouting. Tads - sure, you do it, in case there's a blood mage waiting for us. Kai - awwww
• Weather is really clear, just after dusk, Tads gets a F4 spirit to guard. Cold fron pushing down from Siberia for the next few days, good visibility
• Hunter calls Julius - hellos and stuff, can you check up on Ivan Ramius, KGB - also I'm not quite as dead as I'm supposed to be.
• Leave the quarry at about 6pm, arrive at 10pm, land in a clear area
• Aswon and Shimazu guard, everyone else goes
• Into the diner, dirty, faded, Grigory - who the fuck are you and what do you want? Description. need 3kl of avgas
• 20k for avgas
• Meet orcs and humans from wolfpack, no words spoken, they go to the vending machine, then leave
• Pay grigory, drone sent out. Marius goes to supervise.
• Stay in the craft, overnight#
• Monday morning. Getting ready for takeoff, tir patrol see them and wave - far too friendly. Tir P do a giddly little dance,
• Sperethial "greetings to you oh illustrious traveller from a land far apart"
• Do you speak english? Look at Shimazu - oh of course. Which side are you from? South? Confused.
• I'm actually a tir prince - but on the downlo. Shimazu spots the surgery scars on the ear
• Bluewater comes out with guns - predator II with a plastic addon kit, sprayed on leaves.
• Shimazu assenses - no wards, they have a baby phys-ad. They explain about their tomb raiding - knowledgeable.
• Kai - we're going that way, may give you a call.
• Description of ground getting sparser to the east
• Arrive at Tara, grass strip, 4 hardened chopper pads

Posting this on a tuesday night - we had no game this week as we were down 2 folks due to real life stuff. I'm sort of ok with that as I'm going crazy at work at the moment with a WAN migration, and despite repeated calls to Shadowland for decker support, I'm pretty much on my own. Maybe I need to offer more than a lifestime supply of snackpots in exchange...

More story next week!

Session 111 writeup is now posted, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57448067623964/

Fairly straight-forward this week, they got some fuel and managed to run the border without too much issue, thanks to some careful planning and time spent doing the leg-work. Of course, it might not be as easy on the way out!

Here are the notes:
Early afternoon, just landed at Tara airport
Tariq approaches slowly, Kai drops name of johnson, gets 17.142K of fuel to top up.
much discussion about fuel and costs and ranges and how close they are to running out of cash
whats the plan
marius - wants to fly in at night, low, no lights, noe
aswon - yes, we have no magical concealment due to size of vehicle.
plan to go at dusk, Tariq still waiting
you want somethign, hot drink offer, uncertain. ask for bribe materials, aswon - get him some pistol ammo
waiting until 16:30
around 16:00 - rough lander arrives. offloads and loads tariq gets a box, then it takes off again
Kai calls ludmilla, status update, kai asks for credit, I already gave you an advance, invest, bah,tawdy, we should be back soon, or we'll be dead, take care, goodbye
Tads tries to summon a F6, didn't go well, 40 mins to recover.
fly for nearly an hour, tads stun gone, tries for a F5 this time, 4 services, 3 boxes of stun
Marius spots the company and AA gun, goes to detour, spot the troops cheering, detour back
spot the understrenght bat, pinged by radar, keep flying
cross the border, Kai and tads spot magically active bird, it tries to follow them for a minute
19:00, arrive at drop area.
Aswon -if we hover, can you scout tads - Nope! oh ok,
come in to land
Aswon, Hunter and Shimazu go to check out the farmhouse while the rest ready the vehicles. Marius readies the blimp and puts stuff on standby.
grab the travel chests and winter clothes, shimazyu finds the russian doll,
rabbits nearby, not flee, survival check - quiet area.

Shimazu driving jeep, Hunter front passenger, Tads back left, Aswon back right, Box in the back
Marius, Nadia and Kai staying at the chopper
Heading to the bog in the jeep - stealth score of 6, Tads, leaves the wind spirit with the chopper on guard.Tads casting vehicle mask on the jeep - woolly mammoth -
Shimazu drive check - 1, crashes into something, it attacks the back of the vehicle - Shimazu gets out - roll intative
S=26, A=19,H=15, B=17, Shimazu - checked, it disappeared, Aswon looks astrally, Badger attacks, aswon spears it - Hunter misses his go because he's outside smoking, Shimazu beheads it (wins by 13) Critters roll - dirty, toxic disease carrier
takes the mate with them, covered in tyre marks
drive on - ok,
find a remain of an oil derrick, twisted remains, finds more and more, some ripped apart, feelings of elation / combat
reaction check for all but shimazyu, aiming for the bog, hunter knocks it out of gear.
you ok - discussion of stopping, shielding and spell defence up.
drive on - WP( Aswon fails. smashes the back window out and flees
Marius - WTF? Aswon sprints of, Shimazu catches - flat out.
Tads, stabs, 8L, then 8L, then 8D spirit gone, recover the back window
Back in the chopper - Marius humming music from something - Kai checks, he's ok.
Truck team - drive on. Fails - buys 1
Arrive at site - purple mist, palpable sense of power, exposed leyline.
Talismongering rolls - Shimazu 1, Tads 1, Shimazu buys 1, Tads buys 2, Aswon 1,=6 in total
Hunter perception check = 2 successes . Tads summons a spirit - only 1/2 success, surly uncopoerative
Back in the chopper - Nadia now humming the tune
spirit - "flee, leave me, land belongs to what shall not be named", gets 2 successes = total of 8

So, they found the power site, amidst the oil marshes and are now looking for their magic plant with the aid of a very rude spirit who has hinted at something bad that controls the land. They've been made by a shapeshifter guard who has raised the alert about intruders "somewhere" in this sector, and they've recovered some very personal items from a shattered hearth domain in the burnt out farmhouse.

What could possibly go wrong?
Down one player tonight, but everyone else seems to have confirmed so we should be playing and a writeup should be due by next week - somehow. Going to be tight as I have a 40K tournament this weekend, but we'll manage!

This weeks smuggler writeup is now live at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57467999948964/

It was time for a bit of talismongering this week, with a twist - the plant being on the power line and a conflux of old toxic domains couldn't be a straight-forward harvest now could it? So while the team were split, there were Rusalka spirits to keep life interesting for the lake team, and then a pair of runaways being stalked by the secret police for the helicopter team to deal with.

Notes from the session:

• Early morning, the team still talismongering,
• Team notice pulses in the mana
• Chopper - marius stays on duty, nadia to sleep
• Kai spotted a herd of deer grazing near the edge of the concrete, not caring about the chopper
• Pulses getting stronger, Aswon assenses gets 6 successes
• Tads, gets 4, then 2 on chanting - tales of the spirits of the land, arms as big as a mountain, gathering up the evil
• Shimazu assenses, much the same
• Aswon listens - almost subsonic rumble
• go to examine the end of the rainbow
• Shimazu and Tads spot the anti-ripple. Hunter calls in to Marius. Marius spots a ripple, goes in for a closer look, but warns the team
• Marius 2nd look, spots the ripple and the plants leaning in.
• Shimazu - I will levitate over, Aswon - no, climb on my shoulder, suddenly mana strike on the spot
• Move away from the astral gateway! says Aswon
• Spirit, I warned you! Dawn. The mound rises up out of the water
• Kai - get the plant! Aswon, looks for the plant, can't see from ground level
• Tads goes to get the box, then Shimazu goes with, Tads - no. Shimazu AND aswon, you're not going alone.
• Tads wades in, Q test to avoid slipping - ok, but gets to chin deep, then turns and comes back
• Hook the box onto the condor (50kg load)
• Aswon gets heating on in the vehicle and gets spare clothes
• Athletics checks - both swim checks ok, get to the island
• Meanwhile, back at the chopper, Marius not spotted, Kai does
• Kai runs out with tasers - whoa whoa whoa - medical and safety in helicopter, ramp opening, Nadia wakes up
• Sister gets darted, collapses
• Roll initative - Marius 22, Kai 6, Nadia 14, Hunters 9,
• Marius - roll the doberman down, launch the dalmation,
• Kai - head to the 2 downed people
• First hunter shoots Kai - soaked,
• 2nd one shoots, Kai takes an M, then the same from the third, Serious stun
• MArius shoots the doberman at mook 3 - miss and then 6 hits, 15D, gets 2 on the soak, takes and S, knocked back several metres
• RRI
• Drones fill the air with lead.
• Nadia kills the wounded one. Marius - can you get get the fuckwit.
• Nadia recovers all 3 to the ramp.
• Back to the pond
• Shimazu and tads get to the island and spot the plant, start to dig, slightly larger than the bush
• Aswon - magical perception, one success, 1 spirit about 100m away
• Spirit attacks Aswon, 2L, easily soaked, it has materialised, Hunter shoots, does minimal damage, then a moderate.
• Aswon engages in melee, guts her, feels a jolt from spear.
• Chopper - Nadia gathers guns, water and painkillers for Kai, watches the newbs, Marius secures the area. Then preps for flights
• 2 spirits appear, swap rounds, and engage, both defeated.
• Chopper takes off
• three spirits appear - taken down with burst and stabs
• Aswon assenses spear - 2 9s, not evil, not backlash
• Aswon checks the truck - clean, then more spirits
• Plant uproated and on the way on the condor
• More spirits, Aswon tries kiting, more manabolts, then more spirits
• More dead
• 4 more spirts, ASwon goes for rope, goes to rescue Shimazu and TAds who are struggling to tread water
• Marius swings the chopper in - tight quarters, gets 7 successes
• 4 more spirits appear, last one does an M to HunterS and T running to the chopper
• Hunter takes another moderate
• S+T running, trying to avoid being caught by Aswon
• Spirits attack the chopper futiley, then start to slide after them, quickly left behind
• Marius heads for egress
• Shimazu in the shower "how do I know when I'm not going to die?"

I would imagine next week will be them running the border on the way out, trying to get back to Tara airport in one piece. I'm thinking that 12 hours is long enough for the border patrol shapeshifters to have made it to somewhere, and gathered some reinforcements to make the border crossing out a bit of a challenge.

Smuggler session 113 is now up and posted, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57488086723964/
As ever, the FB account is open to view, you don't need to friend me or anything, and if you don't have facebook, then the chapter gets added to the end of the PDF master story document, a link for which is back on the first page.

So, this week they hit the border guards on the way out and blew through them with a combination of magical and mechanical firepower, and just managing to avoid taking any real damage. I thought three siberian firebirds, two thunderbirds and a "greater" thunderbird felt right in terms of challenge (and there was one Oracle Owl as well, "controlling" the fight, but not involved - it was never spotted and got away to report) and what could be reasonably assembled in time, but with some good sensor rolls, a bit of planning, the shaman going all out on her magical attack to open the party (10 successes on the stun-ball!) and some long raking fire from the HMG, they got through with minimal fuss - then ran into the Russian side of the border. Fortunately, the pilot realised they might outfly a bird, but a missile was a different matter, and obeyed the order to land - so this week it's time for their blagging heads and the face to do his work, and come up with some kind of scheme to work through this trouble and be on their way.

Here are the notes taken during the session that drove the narrative version:

• Aswon - plant into the greenhouse, make nice, Centering, breathing. Makes a magic background test vs 10s - positive vibes, feels "homely".
• Kai -wibbly, shouting at Shimazu,
• Shimazu gets a hot drink then goes to deal with Hunter - serious wound, 9s - rolls an 8 - buys 1. Drops to a moderate.
• Tads into the shower.
• Shimazu checks Kai over - like neurostun VIII, but subtly different - needs time
• Spot the two refugees are awake, go to do first aid, they flinch, spot that the boys wound has gone, clean the blood. warn the others in japanese and mandarin
• Hunter warns Marius over the secure link - Marius is not surprised.
• Nadia - what was that - to shimazu, explains, Nadia goes to watch the guests
• Tads finishes shower, gets warmed up
• What's up with Kai - he's monged out, how is that any different to normal (T+S)
• Tads goes to heal Hunter - 5 successes, drained.
• Marius SEP, on 5s - 6 successes. Good description of the area, the pipelines and the devastation
• Tads and Aswon chanting in the greenhouse. Aswon assenses - spots the boy is an eagle SS, sister is mundane.
• Shimazu gets them some tea, asks them if they speak english - a little. Do you speak russian? They babble at him, he goes to get Hunter
• Hi! How are you!
• Depends on what you're going to do with us and how much you hurt us.
• We're not going to hurt you?
• Can I offer you a deal? If you let us out, we'll not tell anyone we ever saw anything ever?
• Marius - wants to know details of who they are etc?
• They're from Murvalenko - 250km to the north.
• Marius - it's too green here!
• We're on the run from the secret police - they've been chasing us,
• How do they find you?
• They follow our trail...duh. Where are you going? Can you take us to Russia?
• Chatting over comms - where do we drop them off? Tara airport? The smuggler stop? Somewhere in the middle of nowhere?
• Shimazu asks if eagle feathers are worth anything? Tads - maybe, but might hurt him. Do we want to do it?
• Tads and Shimazu have a discussion about outing the shifter, and trying to get a feather, and the ethics of it.
• Shimazu goes to get the frozen clothes, rips out a chunk of seat when it comes up, puts the clothes in the shower to defrost.
• Why were the secret police after him? He's special. How special, we have 4 special people on the chopper. Shimazu tells Hunter in Japanese about the shifter. Why didn't you tell us? Well, we were being hunted because of what he is? We don't trust you, even if you did save us from the hunters
• Want some food? Yes please? They gorge themselves on food, eating with their hands. Hunter - slow down, don't worry theres PLENTY more where that come from.
• Aswon continues to do his thing. Kai is down to a moderate.
• About 100km to the border, half way. They check where they saw the falcon. Heading for the border, treeless area, just to do a high speed run. Craghopping to avoid radar,
• Aswon asks Hunter if the hunter rifles have been bugscanned, or their other kit?
• H gets the bug kit, all clean. Checks the ammo and gets some details on the ammo and guns, gets a bunch of the DMSO rounds, Burns 1 of the 3 credsticks on insertion into the reader.
• Tads trying to work out if the Rusalka can chase them - she doesn't really know, but hopes they are chained to the area.
• 25km to the border, Marius gives a warning, Shimazu lashes down the vehicle in a rush.
• Magical perception, not much - from Tads, unsettled by the view.
• Get 10km from the border, another check - spot the firebird and tbirds, gives the team a brief. Tads puts shielding on Marius and Chopper. Marius puts the HMG on warmup, only using sensor - in case of mind powers.
• Tads - casts stunball at 5M at Tbird 1, gets ten successes, it drops like a stone.
• Ball lightning hits the chopper, 6D down to a 3S, soaked just. No secondary effects.
• Hunter trying gunnery - target a tbird, trying to shoot that one - cuts it in half.
• Firebirds accelerate and flame trail, Marius dodges with 10 successes, everyone makes a WP test to keep their lunch in.
• Greater thunderbird attacks, manages to do a light cosmetic damage to the chopper
• Marius spins the chopper and lines up perfectly, saws off a wing, then takes a deadly stun from Tads
• Tads tries to the spot the last one, behind, Marius doesn't want to stop, continues to head for the border
• Tads - realises that none of them used their accident power. Takes a light stun.
• Chopper is picked up - call on the guard channel - ID yourselves or be fired upon. Marius picks up X band radar locking on to the bird.
• Marius gives them legit ID code, goes with blag - we crossed the border to avoid magical attack, look at the gash on the side of the chopper. Do you guys not shoot this shit down?
• Average blag effort, told to go to landing site about 2km over the boarder and land in a field or they will be shot down.
• Marius follows instructions but slows and gives everyone as much time to prepare as possible.
• Tads suggests mask them as plants in the greenhouse.

Should have the full team tonight, and hopefully they will deal with the border guards quickly enough, hop back to Tara for fuel, then on to Grigories, the Quarry and then the last hop back to their employer Ludmilla to get paid - assuming they have enough fuel!

Smuggler session 114 is written up and is now live at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57505043088964/

This week we got to find out just what you have to do to get away from an AA company of the Russian Military, with a side order of "holy crap a Siberian Firebird attacking us". The team also discovered the Domovoy now inhabiting the chopper, which made Marius really mad - he's convinced it's the fault of the magic users.

My general plan for the session was something like this:
The Russians
Captain Jakeri, commander of the 896th Border Guards Company, part of 89th Guard Motor Rifle Brigade, 20th Army
Commands just over 100 men, covering a couple of KM of the border. Roughly 50% of the men are riflemen, the other 50% have specialised arms, a mix of shoulder launched SAMs, operators for the ZSU quad guns, and a couple of BMP style vehicles with AA missiles.
He is accompanied by his command squad - a radio operator, map carrier, two bodyguards/riflemen and his driver, with his command BMP, which are hidden in the woodline.

During the initial meeting, the last Firebird, controlled by the Owl will make a run on them, roasting a few Russians as it overflies them in a screaming low pass, turning them to human torches. It will come in at high initative, aiming for the command group and the team. Only Shimazu should be able to top the initiative tree, and take it out in hand to hand, causing it to explode in a fiery ball (10M fire based, half impact and cause a load of flame damage nearby - which the team can then medic and magically heal. This along with the fast talk should sell their credentials to the Captain, who will offer his support to the "spetsnaz" team.
He can top off the fuel tanks with mid-octane fuel. It's not as good as standard jet fuel, but it will mix in ok and extend their range.
He can supply up to 5 “RPG-30” 105mm anti-tank guided missiles.

If they head back to Tara, they can top up the tanks without charge - but Ludmilla will deduct 150% of the fuel cost from the end pay.
Grigories should be a quick gas and go, but if not they can encounter two teams here. "Hope" heading to a new town to recruit some girls, and "Team Simple Action", running some drugs along the line towards Vladivostok.
At the Quarry are Project 17 and The Clean Whistle

Otherwise it's back to Ludmilla and her "secret underground lair" dam complex.
Initial offer = 250,000. 50k advanced, box built, Tara airport.

Follow up
Ludmillas next job on offer - can the team go recover a breeding pair of glow scorpions from the irradiated desert of Libya. The offer is for 3/4 million base, and she can offer a fuel stop in Egypt.

We didn't make it quite as far as the next job offer, but that does give me a day to prepare some briefing materials and maps at least.

Notes from the session:

• Coming in, Kai outlines the plan – We’re a Russian TLA, blag the guards
• Marius - realises that they probably got seen by passives over the border
• If they call the bluff, drop the Brigadiers name
• Tads cast F6 trid phantasm, 6 successes, specialist military base, Aswon stays in the greenhouse, took a moderate, up to M+1
• Kai salutes, gets it returned, walks down with Shimazu,
• Thanks for your assistance, we'll get out of your hair
• No - we're detaining you - confused.
• Did you not see the fight,yes yes yes.
• Firebird attack, roasts the SAM gunners,
• Aswon 16, Marius 25, Hunter 15, Kai 7, Tads 6, Shimazu 24,
• Firebird in - Shimazu fails WP test, impulsive bodyguard, 8vs 4, does it a D, not soaked, explodes.
• Captain soaks to an L, as do the troops. Captains pistol goes up and does an M. Radio operator is slagged.
• Marius - delay, Aswon - grabs spear and fire extinguisher, Hunter - fire extinguisher, Kai screams MEDIC, Tads-shielding on the people outside.
• Guys come out hosing out the fire down, some point guns at Kai. Kai - commanding voice - get a medic soldier! Soldier complies
• Aswon gestures to troops to keep eyes out, troopers uncertain
• Kai combat medics assessment - needs urgent attention. Get one success each from Shimazu and Kai on the officer. About 30 seconds.
• Aswon assenses for implants - 2 points of essence
• Sergeant orders the troops to look out, sends someone for a medic van and stretcher
• Kai calls in specialist - specialist in what, alternative healing - oh, ok.
• Tads heals, drops him to a light. Takes a bit more stun
• Kai - points to the driver, he's in charge! Tells that to the rest of the Russian team.
• BMP coming towards them from the woodline, Kai - don't go near our vehicle
• Medics - Svenski, look after the captain.
• Kai - we need to move out fast - kinesics blag, 8 vs 3
• Aswon checks on the guest - all ok, thumbs up.
• Captain asks about the mission, asks to see the plant so he can write a report.
• What can we do to help the mission? Kai - keep our tail clear of anything following in.
• Gets some fresh food, to him, then spool up the engines, and they head off.
• Team takes off. Hunter marks location on the map of the regiment
• No random encounters, an hour back to Tara airport.
• Tariq - spots, come with hose for fuel
• Tell the kids they can leave here, kit them out with warm clothes, one gun and some ammo, food, a little cash.
• We never met - but he's our number (Kai). Off they go.
• Tariq tops the tank off. Kai texts the Johnson, after trying to call her. Tanks filled up.
• Take off from Tara heading to Grigories, about 200km, major malfunction on one engine, master alarm, Marius decides to put her down, scans for landing site, then alarms clear.
• Tads goes astral, actually spots the spirt, gets back in the chopper, shouts "astral alert", tries to call wind spirit - it's not here. Magical perception checks.
• Marius flys very smoothly, Team looks around, Tads spots the grandfather very briefly. Magic background check - get some food as an offering.
• Hunter gets some porridge, Tads guides him, spirit looks around, can you see the porridge, but there's nowhere to sit. Move to the seat. Tell the man driving the horse that one of his pins broke. Marius is *not* impressed.
• Sorry grandfather, we didn't spot you earlier. Where did the nice people go. On their own journey. Do you want anything else?
• I have heard that porridge made with brandy is nice. We have vodka - goes for fresh bowl.
• Can you tell me how you got through the ward? Can you teach me that? No. Tads checks him out - about F6.
• Are you staying with us long? Are you going anywhere in particular? Yes, and No.
• He goes to check on the plant, does a motion. Background count slightly more positive, then goes to sit and swing his seat. Tads warns him about combat manoeuvres, and says to check with her or Shimazu. Marius purposefully ignores everything but flying.
• Land at Grigories, 1237km our of 1400. Full tank is 20k, 17,761 nuyen. No interaction with other teams. Kai tries Ludmilla, but still busy, sends an update.
• Marius splits the difference between the two destinations - Tads tries to summon, gets grandfather. Ludmilla answers
• Bring the plant to me, about 5 hours, change flightpath, where can we land, on my helipad.
• Uneventful journey to the dam, 5 hours, arrive about 10pm
• Butler arrives, do you need a hand, a trolley will be bought.
• Taken to meet Ludmilla, antiquities everywhere, hello Darlink!
• May I see it, Aswon explains about the environment. Banging sex... Pays the team, butler takes it away. Offers them tea
• Stopping there

Smuggler session 115 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57524979123964/

Lots of talking and player discussion in this one, so it ended up being shorter than normal.

Finally they have arrived and met Ludmilla, who has immediately offered them another job for good money - though it involves a lot of travel.
I was originally trying to get a friend to skype in and be the voice of Ludmilla, but unfortunately timing didn't work out. This is the brief I had written for her:

You are: Ludmilla Kuzmina, currently based out of Gorodets, a small city just north of Nizhny Novgorod. You are a 35 year old, human female, daughter of a wealthy oil and heavy industry tycoon Marko Kuzmina. You live in a hydro-electric station on the edge of town, straddling the Volga river: https://goo.gl/maps/CG8CkX12C9sMDvG36
How you got in touch: You have a mutual business contact – Patrick Van Der Baas, an international weapons dealer and smuggler. You’ve done business with him for several years, and he’s trusted as much as you trust anyone. He has contacted you to let you know he has a team who just did a job for him and have proven to be quick and reliable – and then extended their service to his other client and did a job they are “very pleased” with. They’re currently recovering from their previous mission, but will be available soon for work, and have several magical team members who might prove useful to you.
What you do: You’re a bit of an oddity – you don’t really “do” anything, other than bounce around the world of science like a pinball. You’re independently wealthy from your huge business empire which is run and managed by a board and factors, leaving you free to work on your experiments. Probably the best description is bio-chemical nano-magical researcher. You have an interest in a broad range of sciences and 6th world spheres of interest, and move from one research project to another as the mood takes you. You’re also a mover and shaker on the “grand tour” scene, with a wide array of people all wanting to impress you or be your friend – mostly to get access to the colossal amount of funding you have available, if you so choose.
What you want: You have heard about a magical plant to be found in Yakut that grows only in very specific circumstances – hot springs in cold conditions, atop a mana line. The stuff is called “Singing-Soulweed”, and grows only where there is a large, and sharp temperature differential between the leaves and the roots, while it is reliant on raw mana being in the area. You’ve information that indicates that some may grow in the region of Ozero Pil’tanlor – around 61.7, 73.3, (https://goo.gl/maps/XsgfC7capT2LttTbA) Unfortunately you have no contacts in Yakut, and they hate people raiding their land for telesma, so you need a discreet team who can find you some, and bring it to you for analysis
What you know: In terms of the job – they will need to cross a hostile border between two nations at war, get into the area with minimal detection, and then spend time harvesting the goods – avoiding the local population, spies, defence forces, magical threats and the Yakut secret police. Their forces are not technically advanced, but have strong magical prowess.
What they need to move: The plant requires very specific considerations to be viable as a live sample. If they can bring you a variety (at least 5 different samples, from diverse areas) you have the best chance to cultivate some of your own. With fewer samples, it becomes more difficult, so the pay will decrease. Bringing you harvested samples (i.e. dead material, in plastic bags / boxes) can still be used for research and analysis, but again is less valuable than a live sample.
What you offer: you have a variety of options to offer, and will of course start with a low bid and try to get their services as cheaply as possible.

1. Tier 1 rewards – the basic offer. A flat fee of 250,000 Nuyen, to retrieve samples – either a 20-kilo load of gathered material and clippings, or a single live specimen.
2. Tier 2 rewards – if they sound too upset with tier 1, and are negotiating with you, or think they can do better. Offer an additional 50K per live sample, up to a maximum of 10 plants, or per additional 5 kilos of gathered material.
3. Tier 3 rewards – if they negotiate well with you, seem very confident, or can justify the costs, you will expand the offer to include medical care if required on their return, and access to some of your creations (you have an advanced nano-technology med-kit that you have enhanced with some of your own creations, that would be of great use to them – it comes pre-loaded with some quality techno-babble stuff) that you can put on the offer table.
4. Tier 4 rewards – if they REALLY really impress you, come up with a sob story that makes you cry, or laugh uncontrollably, then you will offer the final level of reward – the offer from the levels below, and the access codes for your helipad and fuel depot, to use as a staging area in the future. Provided they don’t bodge the mission of course. This might be something that absolutely doesn’t come up in the first mission, but if they do this mission, and perhaps another one or two others afterwards, they could work towards.

What is really going on: You are sending the team into a war zone. It’s almost certain this will lead to combat, against a magically powerful enemy. However, the magical abilities and factors rumoured to be in this plant would be incredibly helpful to your research. You can also purchase other material they gather, if they want to sell it, or it can be seen as a “perk of the job” for them to keep it as long as you get the main target.
What you’re really like: You’re pretty amoral, researching things for the sake of knowledge itself, looking to advance science and understand the world. You find ethical issues so tiresome to deal with, getting in the way of discovery. In some ways you’re incredibly “evil”, having no issue with experimenting on live subjects and pursuing research to the detriment of others, in other ways you’re the ultimate expression of “neutral” – the end justifies the means, and you’re as likely to come up with a cure for ebola, anthrax, the flu or the common cold as you are to develop a new undetectable nerve agent.
The base you live in, the underground area of the dam will be described to the players like one of the Hydra bunkers from the MCU – lots of labs, people doing research, questionable morals. You have really good equipment and no oversight committee – and one of the things I want the players to try and pick up on is the “science is not good or evil, it’s the application you put it to that counts”. So, you will happily develop super-ebola++ nerve agent death beams – but just as an engineering or science challenge. You’re not about the end use, it’s about the journey. You’re not dumb of course (quite the opposite, you’re incredibly intelligent and well educated), so the stuff you DO develop gets passed over to the company to exploit (if it’s legit stuff that doesn’t break international law), or sold to smugglers / dealers like Patrick (if it’s not legit stuff that would get you accused of genocide / war crimes)
Overall Feel: In an ideal world, I want to players to have to weigh the fact that you pay well – really well, for straightforward missions, against the constant nagging doubt of “are we the baddies” – or perhaps “are we the minions and low level agents of the baddie?”

Now they are trying to weigh up the money from another run with Ludmilla and earning more rep with her, against the potential damage they could suffer from not following up on Germaines friend up this way, or possibly trying to do both, and if so, in which order...

Here are the notes from the session that led to the narrative:

• Jeeves sent over with a credstick on an 18th century silver tray (Kai made antiquities check) - does not check value. Looks around the room, spots a Monet, Faberge egg, asks to check it, "exquisite" she smiles and dimples
• I might have another job for you, if you're interested.
• Hunter - internal comms - 50% up front!
• Aswon - we do have some other business to attend to as well, then backs out of conversation.
• Aswon - 7 on a paracritters, Marius looks keen - we want money, she has money,
• Tads - 3,3,4 - scorpions, very dangerous.
• Aswon - pipes up - would eggs do? Yes - if they're viable, commendable initiative. Aswon - what are the politics, told about the pre-season and Tunisia.
• Taken to suites.
• Tads to Kai when in private - remember what i told you? No. Lecture about flat disguise, risk when she had to rearrange.
• Ask Jeeves for truffles for Tads. We will arrange for tomorrow. Passes clicker.
• Tads and Aswon go to leave, guard, can I help you, want to return to the chopper, developing situation. Can you do via vidlink. No. Let me see if I can arrange this.
• Marius planning via Crete - Constantinople, Crimea, quarry - come up with rough cost of 200k
• Tads worried about keeping scorpions alive and safe for the duration, and people not poisoned.
• Marius - compare cost of air travel but speed, vs truck, time and danger of random bad guys
• Aswon suggests Tads learns control pack / animal.
• Nadia pipes up - get the hook on and the truck back to the ranch
• Tads - reminder about Germaine’s friend. Also she wants bio-chemical stuff. We have 4 leeches. Also sell those shares. Shimazu - what the hell does that have to do with my leeches?
• Discussion of fuel costs, size of Libya, need for rad suits?
• Working out flight time - legit flight plans, need crew rest times, allow 3-5 days
• Kai trying to work out visa costs and admin times
• Marius wants to get the hook and comfort gear sorted at the quarry, shaman time to learn spells
• Aswon - 11+9 on combat sports, background on desert wars, desert wars LLC runs the media circus. Thinking about trying to get a legit permit to be in the area? Could they be bribed?
• Discussion about rad shielding amongst Shimazu/Kai/Aswon
• Tads and Aswon go back to chopper with the guide, he sets up a lash up to communicate
• stop there

Smuggler Session 116 is now up at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57588116223964/

As you've probably gathered we had a break over christmas and new year while people did family stuff and things. I'm not a fan of silly season, so I worked through - got some quality network maintenance done on xmas day and boxing day, and had a server failure to deal with on new years day - so no rest for the wicked.

But at least publishing it now gives my players a quick refresher on what they were doing, where they were and what was next!

They learnt a bit more about Ludmillas base, and her operations and definitely are aware that she's got a lot of money and resources to throw at problems - but that she also is likely to send them on missions that are juicy.

They're doing a quick run to Sweden to pick up some Bioware and cyberware to smuggle to Moscow first, then off to Desert Wars to collect two scorpions with the some of the most lethal venom in the world. What could go wrong?

As usual, here are the notes from the session that lead to the writeup:

• Tads and Aswon back to the chopper, Aswon checks astral, spots some homely tidying touches.
• Tads "rips" the back seat of the car with the frozen clothes... uh oh...
• Tads arranges blankies in the living module to keep them warm
• Shimazu thinking about showing Ludmilla leeches - not selling.
• Marius and Nadia off for sleep - Nadia never been somewhere so posh. Nadia is up for nookie.
• Wednesday morning.
• Aswon makes Porridge, adds vodka then leaves it, then goes inside.
• Gets a pair of leeches in one jar and wrap in a towel. Asks Shimazu why, explains to show Ludmilla.
• Tries the door into the dam, not open, calls the inside.
• Guard makes arrangements, escort them to the room. Shimazu asks for breakfast.
• Tads checks Aswon aura for leech drain, just in case
• Luxury breakfast arrives - tads samples everything.
• 30 mins later, was breakfast ok? Aswon very keen to say yes, Fresh mango juice, sun, beyond our means
• The lady wants to know if you have an answer for her by 11am
• Aswon asks for somewhere to run - what kind of running, I can make arrangements
• Kai calls Germaine, just finished a job, gets contact details for Vladimir, it might be noisy. We have some stuff to do, do you have more work. I'm sure I will Kai, if you're timely
• Oh, is the holiday ready - prevaricate, tell Germaine get back to her in two days
• Kai calls the ranch, everything ok, yes, ready for bookings, oh yes, we have a lovely lady, I'll call back and explain - high maintenance. Do I need to get more towels. Yes. How is the local town - great, police have deputies
• How is the local town, explains there has been an election, asks her for more details.
• Call Vladimir, foghorn, job, galleon under sail. “I Need Transporters, movers like different”. What do you need moving, some frozen things, describe four chest freezers, Stockholm to Moscow, 2 weeks. Kai asks to call back
• Team discusses possibility, working out routes. Aswon vastly overestimates distances and time, working out commercial travel permits and such like,
• Marius wants to check the aircraft for the hole, the cotter pin and illegal stowage
• Guard turns up to take them running, grabs SMG, escorts with privacy distance, tom rolls a 1, spitting pike, attacks Shimazu, dodges spit, guard shoots it with ex-ex.
• Engineer accompanies Marius and Nadia, looks at t-bird, offers help fixing, Marius checks pin, cotter pin broken, engineer we can help with that, on the lathe, titanium? Oh yes!
• Tool envy seen, engineers workshop - does well on a charisma check, engineers talk about damage to "other vehicles",
• Calls Vladimir, chat about stuff, offers 80k, negotiate to 90k. 10k bonus if inside 8 days. taken the deal.
• Tads - asking kai if he needs to arrange Germaine’s visit. Kai - don't worry, I'll sort it.
• All get back to the suite, shower, go to Ludmilla for 11am
• Taken to bio lab, look and see the green back monkeys, double tables, morning darlings, sleep ok, how about my job offer?
• Kai - we do have a job, about a week, then your job
• Ludmilla offers two - either 500k, or 350k and the diesel engine.
• Some discussion about engine efficiency, range, advantages and disadvantages
• Plan - do the Sweden job, refuel, then Africa job, stop at the quarry, take the truck to the farm, Nadia and Marius go to the dam and refit the chopper.
• Monkey doing combat drug testing in the background
• Kai - my friend has something interesting - Shimazu unveils leeches
• What are they - magical leeches - what do they do? Secrete corrosive saliva, analgesic, removal salt or burning UV light to stop burrowing. Where did you get this magnificent specimen? One time opportunistic seller from Turkmenistan! What do they eat?> Team look. Any and all meat. Hunter - and they drain you! Drain you. Explain a bit. How many do you have? 4. And how many do you need? I don't know, only I seem to have a fondness for them.
• Aswon - nobody knows what they are. Tads - in the interest of full disclosure, if they are hungry, other creatures can be anaemic.
• I must have them for my research! How much. Tads - a diesel engine?
• Ask for combat drugs in exchange for leeches. Escort to the chopper for the rest.
• Ludmilla recounts the mission, a week, up front payment? Agrees to take fuel cost off the top.
• Marius, Kai chatting outside. Hunter and Shimazu going for medical testing. Aswon tells Ludmilla about ghosts.
• Recount the story with the ghosts, Ludmilla asks pertinent questions,
• Asks for another copy of that, agree to swap for anti-venom and a heart slowing drug.
• Call Germaine, arrange for that weekend, any desires, rustic. Do you have a landing pad, an area to land, no, we'll take the Bentley
• Did you call Vlad, yes, all sorted, lovely.
• Testing for Hunter and Shimazu in med lab for combat drugs
• Tads and Aswon taken to PAB lab, subject willing, asks lots of details, does a full x rig.
• Chef runs up - delivers two truffles in a box
• Now about 1pm, readying for takeoff
• Aswon and Tads working on the report for the Chinese guy

No update yet this week, I have caught VITAS (not sure what strain). Last weeks is 50% written, this weeks game is cancelled, as I refuse to be patient zero to anyone except my wife, or cough and splutter through every NPC speech and description. Hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly.

This weeks (well, last weeks really) writeup is published and can be found at:https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57625788978964/

So - what happened in session 117? A lot, and yet very little. The team did a straight forward pickup from Sweden and delivery to Moscow. They don't know it, but they've bought 4 freezers full of the latest Bioware from a production facility ready to be implanted in various Mafia goons in Moscow, helping them to solidify their control over the shadow scene.

What they did was have a very uneventful journey there and back, mostly be flying legit, using transponders faked up by their contact and some dodgy SINS generated a while back, to get legit flight clearance to and from Sweden. It made the run go very smoothly - but it's left a huge electronic fingerprint behind. One of their fake SINS is now tied to a journey, with a flight plan filed and amnended, possibly tying back some elements of their location when they changed it, and logging one of the transponders to a series of journies made under that ID. It's not going to give them any grief now - but any enterprising decker will suddenly have a lot more to look at in the future when they annoy someone and they get enemies willing to invest some time and have a look.

I'm now having to come up with a fresh page on my tracker to account for what IDs have been tied together with what activity, so I can refer back when these searches inevitably happen in the future...

Here are the notes from the session:

• Date Tuesday 20/04/2060, Location: 56.64946, 43.37541
• Heading to Velinky first, 3k for the insurance and paperwork, about 5% fees on change of currency if required
• Aswon moving money from the charity, attached to his Iranian ID, to Marius fake chopper ID, to pay for insurance and fees
• Tads testing her truffles. Gets a good read on the flavour and texture.
• Tads suggests calling the Swedish guy from “Reclamations Inc.” to get local knowledge
• Kai checking border procedures
• Checking picking up and drop off locations - good skill check
• Arrive at airport, radio check, one circuit waiting for a slot, land about 2pm, and refuel costs 8685
• Working out timing to arrive at golf course after dark, do we need crew rest etc
• Discussing how to do the landing, touch and go, accept that they will put the freezers in the back, behind the jeep.
• Marius flying casual - sensor check, doesn't spot the frigate.
• Out over the Gulf of Finland, uneventful journey - gets painted up the ass with a radar lock
• Tads summoned a sky spirit - grandfather bristles, Tads releases it, grandfather harrumph
• Aswon sends report - written in English, Int. check - 5 successes, excellent quality report, reference simsense available
• Refill the tanks - 10857,Marius checks over the bird, ground crew asks if they want filters cleaning, windows cleaning etc, Marius thumbprints the work orders
• Hunter planning some alternate routes in case of detours or combat
• Tads suggests - program to do this automatically
• Nadia - programming, yeah we can do that.
• Kai - what is the plan for landing - Marius wants to do it so fast, people won't even realise we've stopped hopefully, Kai suggests creating a fault that can be on the sensors - int check, easiest to do is the cargo being loose
• Hunter texting Julius, just checking in, saying hello. Julius out for the evening.
• Tads planning on using trid phantasm to hide the stop to pickup
• Kai contacting the number for pickup and advising on ETA
• 6pm, time to take off, squalls coming in
• Go through the team plan, lowest altitude, sudden drop, cover with spell, quick pickup, then resume
• Pay the 1k bill, then clearance granted
• Tads try to explain to grandfather, he has the hump, bribed with porridge,
• Tads casts illusion, 2 successes, no BGC, took Light stun, Marius lands with 5 succcess
• Spots half a dozen people with SMGs, about 2 mins, no radio check, one of the guys takes a photo,
• Tads spots one person coming out of hotel, Marius checks, hotel staff with a torch, takeoff ok
• Aswon grabs the bug scanner and checks - no bugs
• Try to plug in the fridges - plugs do not match - try to jury rig something. Marius fails, Hunter gets 1 on electronics B/R - takes 90 mins
• Nadia shouts alarm, Marius checks, x band radar, quick lockup, detects just a "fishing trawler",
• Aswon hears the compressor warming slightly - checks, decides not a problem.
• get to land, query, confirm, re query, re confirm,
• 9120 Nuyen to retank at Novgorod, then head south
• Planning to head to Moscow, working out where to meet contact
• Call the contact, to VM "I have 4 boxes of frozen fish, different drop off,call me back"
• Express fish delivery! Ahh, you have delivery, we want to meet elsewhere, why, it's a bit urban - we can deliver
• Aswon and Hunter planning to get the freezers in the jeep, from eta -30m
• Aswon marks up the damaged ratchet straps to make sure it's clear which they are.
• Load up the 4 X 4, just about get it done. Kai and Shimazu going, Kai no armour... 2k+taser.
• Marius puts it down gently, Shimazu car check. Tads invisible on the tarps, F3, 3 successes,
• Car check driving into Moscow, 10pm
• Shimazu spots the lookouts, Kai warns they are inbound.
• Drop the invisibility on the tarp after dramatic unveiling.
• Bang on the roller door, men come out, unload, ok, you go now, Kai texts then rings Vlad, you have made delivery, it is good, like wheat in the sunset. I wait, head on pillow like virgin,
• Kai tells him to send money to the Doctor ID. Vlad calls back, I will tell Germaine I am happy like Larry. No wait - I have a job, take a thing to Germaine.
• Shimazu gets back to airport ok, and team meets up. Vlad sends 90k

We're one player down next week (Justin/Hunter) but we'll almost certainly play on, as it should be routing stuff - meeting Vlad, getting the package, down to the Quarry, some maintenance on the bird and then down to meet Germaine.

Smuggler session 118 is now published and live, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57651897398964/

We were down one player this week, which was an arse - as of course sods law says it was the player that had plot aimed at them. As a result, I've gone a little light with the detail and tried to move things around in session to make sure that stuff happened at the end, and could easily be picked up this week instead. Hunter has had long enough with his -4 point flaw of "Hunted", and especially after being filmed in the fight and that blasting all over the matrix, I figured it was overdue to come home to roost. At least they're heading off to the desert for a bit of hunting, so it's a good time for the heat to die down a little.

But, they're back in the Quarry, with a bunch of Nuyen available to upgrade the chopper and reasonable facilities to do so, and they've bumped into two more smuggler teams - and fortunately two of the "nicer" teams at that, so maybe a chance to make some more contacts.

Tonights session will probably be some discussion on what to do about Hunter, some upgrading of the chopper and maybe some rollamaplay with the other teams, but then hopefully we can get back down to the ranch and meet with Germaine. The next question of course is should the Domovoy leave the chopper and move over to Germaine if they give her the dolls - or she he "nest" with the team. On one hand it's gimping Tads a little by not making her able to summon spirits in the chopper - on the other hand it does give them a permanent defense spirit. Hmm... What do you folks think?

Notes from the session

• Date Wednesday 20/04/2060, Location: 55.88864, 38.05461
• At the airport to the east of Moscow, Chkalovskiy, in the freight section
• staying overnight, 500 Nuyen,
• Aswon goes out early in the morning to get some fuel for the UAZ, Russian porridge juice, breakfast for everyone. Uses Dr Chege Keanjaho ID
• Hunters contact (Julius Jones) to call him back in the morning - he was out on company night out, celebrating. Ares has had a big win in the Shirvan autonomous zone, gained a juicy contract and KE will be taking over the policing if all goes well. What did you call for? Just a checkup. Do you know some stuff about desert wars?
• He offers to poke the internal message forums and check up on desert wars from an Ares POV
• Tads asks for a search on lifecycle on scorpions.
• Aswon - wanting to know about size, and basic planning on how to capture them
• Call vlad, can we meet you, yes, we meet for lunch like picnic
• Kai - Do you have a landing pad?
• *hesitant* I have ground like flat and hard?
• Marius, Russian check with flight planner, 100 nuyen bribe for the landing clearance at Vlads
• Random weather roll - clear, cold front still, great visibility,
• Kai checking the dolls – antiquities roll, good quality
• Shimazu asks grandfather about the dolls - they belonged to little Katie, in the family 3 generations,
• We were going to gift them to someone, Kai - she will love them and treat them like they want to
• Discussion about Domovoy and background on Russian culture / spirits from tads - good magic background.
• Get to Vlads, pulling a ship out of the Volga by chains, brute force and ignorance. Dockyard is chaos, messy area,
• Vlad approaches, you land like buzzard from the sky, how are you, good like fine day.
• Aswon coughs about 10k, Kai tries to fob him off.
• Hands over envelope, handful of cash, then small bag for the 10k
• Kai, work, we're off on a mission, but do you have work when we come back - yes, work like job centre,
• Ship, is going well, like little boy playing with toy
• Flying out, 685km back to quarry
• Received pay of 3k in hard currency, russian roubles, sealed envelope, and a handful of diamonds worth 10k
• Tads assenses bag and envelope - nothing. Check the diamonds over - gem rolls, get some useful info, talismongering - some are "virgin" and suitable for magical use.
• Kai, texts Germaine, she is at the ranch on holiday, horse riding
• Kai calls Vishtar to arrange landing slot, Vishtar sends code, thinks about it, then sends it to Marius as well,
• In the base, 6+17 - Sandstorm and Project 17, Team in pod 3
• Tads - chats to grandfather, warns about spirits, Aswon warns about damaging the rocks,
• Get to rec area, hear the crowd
• Pie face challenge, Aswon puts five on sandstorm, wins
• Introductions from sandstorm and Project 17
• Kai gets some food - mixed colours, everyone relaxes
• Kai puts 100 nuyen down for food
• Storm and Marius froth about vehicles a bit. Minne joins, go for a froth at pod 3, check each others vehicles out.
• Aswon - talking with Chrysocolla, You are magnificent. Escape from the corps, mostly leave chat till next week
• Marius shows the other pilots his bird, they show him theirs
• Milo contacts Marius - he's heard some news on the grapevine, there's been a sighting of Jason Web, a former ZetaImpChem employee, in southern Russia. Clip from the fight, freeze frame, digital enhancement. Currently a bounty of 5K for information leading to whereabouts.
• Back to the team to explain.
• Tads explains to grandfather about the other ally spirit.

Episode 119 is now published and can be found at:https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57675382888964/

A short one this week, only just over 3k words - which is handy as I went to a warhammer tournament and spent most of the weekend being soundly thrashed by people who are a lot better than me!
We were also down one player - Fozzy (Kai) who'd been the subject of a hit-and-run car collision, and was at home getting over shock and nursing his bruises. Thankfully it was a pretty minor bump, and other than some bruises and disgust that the driver didn't stop, he's ok and should be back this week.

With the news that Hunter has been "spotted" and has surfaced on the ZIC radar, I've gone back through the previous episodes to confirm my notes and make sure I'm not giving them knowledge that's not reasonable - and have two main data points.
The first is the most recent of course, and the fight with the Bogbuster. The crew of the hovercraft got a *very* good look at him, and have a strong desire to see him come to a sticky end, considering what he did to their champion and how he humiliated their boss (and how much he took it out on all of them afterwards) - so they are running to the corp with lots of juicy gossip - only tempered by the fact that their mage (who knows a good thing when he sees one) has forbidden any mention of the quarry - they need that base to operate from, so they can't have the corp raid it.
The second is the policemen who attended the accident in the north side of Constantinople, where Tads got knocked off her bike and injured. They saw Hunter, and were dealing with him before they got the mysterious call from base about "secret agents". When that all turned out to be rubbish of course, it was very embarrassing for the police, so that's got to have stuck in their craw.

That gives ZIC two firm sightings and some information about the rest of the team to work with, and to try and develop further information. If the team make it to Africa and go wandering the desert for a while, the heat will die down slightly as they drop off the radar - conversly, if they're not careful with getting there, then it could be a case of joining the dots up and the ZIC Desert Wars team getting a pre-season warmup match. Hmm.....!

Here are the notes from the run:

• Date Wednesday 20/04/2060, Location: 55.88864, 38.05461
• about 3pm in the quarry
• Cargo hook, 10,000kg capacity
• Airline chem toilet, probably a shower, partial amenities
• Much discussion about why they are taking the truck to the farm, who is doing it,
• Kai idea - train from the farm to Batumi, a lot closer to the flight plan route to africa.
• Talk from team about going legit flight plan to Batumi and not using crime boss there.
• Living amenities for 7 = 17.5k, +1k for skyhook
• Team has 231k, booking in the work.
• Shimazu driving the truck, with Hunter and Aswon. Not doing 3 days alone with an ork...Nadia going too?
• Kai - border crossings, worried about footprints and tying signatures together
• Aswon - we have to, we can't stealth
• Marius - discussion about getting past 14 mile limit, international waters, but then into another countries airspace
• Tads reminds people of the smuggler stop, working out flight times and ability of marius to stay awake.
• Belts for people, for working near ramp instead of full harness
• Get to farm, then get to Baku, travel west on train to Batumi and the airport
• Nadia given 50k for base building. Should leave the rest of the team with 50k surplus.
• Tads filling the truck with non-perishable food to take to the ranch
• Get the truck back together, was a bit slow, needed some help from the base team, half a days labour.
• Tads - will the ranch be allowed to use the truck - MArius - FUNNY FACE
• Traffic near 119, about 1pm, solid traffic, nothing on the other side.
• Aswon, astral perception. Toxic cloud, mana warp, drifting towards them, checking magic background - maybe rad, maybe toxic cloud, maybe FAB.
• Dramatic ending. (It helps if you do the end music to Eastenders in your head...)

Bogbuster - giving description of hunter and accomplices.
Policemen in constantinople - hunter car crash / secret agent

Smuggler session 120 is now up and posted at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57714288693964/

Sorry for anyone waiting - I'm behind, I know. Illness and being hectic at work, along with a certain amount of rubbishness on my part, and getting ready for my nephew coming to visit us this weekend and running Shadowruns Friday, Saturday and Sunday have eaten into my writing time.

So - session 120... yeah. So, they split the party, which was always going to be an issue, because the ground team had to cover a lot of km, and a border, and then do public travel, so there were always going to be risks / delays at chance.
On the way down to the border they ran into some troops in the noddy suits - the same suits they found in the military cases stolen all the way back in episode #1. Originally I'd planned for them to have to deal with some NBC situation in Russia as part of their early mission, but they gave up the gear very easily and didn't seem bothered. The plot still happened, just the other NPCs took out the threat, and managed to botch it, creating a massive spill and a media frenzy.

On the other hand, they got to rescue one of the team and fix him up a bit, then get him across the border and back into the TCL, to the hospital and that has gotten them back on track with a friendly local warlord. first met in episode 55. He had been intended to be a conduit to be developed for getting mil-tech weapons/ammo - until Kai got a botch on his initial greeting and shouted deadly insults at them.

Shadowrunners.... *sigh*.

So anyway, the warlord sent his team to blow up the bio-research lab, they messed it up and caused the cloud. That's bad, and will affect stuff in Russia for a while. But, the team are heading to africa, so that's ok. It does let them get a bit chummy with him again, and if they are careful, will help them get systems for the chopper and weapons. So that's all good!

I rearranged some of the events between the two teams a little to try and make a better narrative flow between them, but nothing major. Here's the notes from the game session:

• Thurs afternoon, in the quarry, chopper build repair, 9 and a 10. Tads doing foci design
• Get the cargo hook in, and also build 4CF worth of smuggling compartment.
• Tads offers to ward the new compartment, but says will be better with the other magic users
• Back to the death cloud team
• Spot crows going into the cloud and dying. Shimazu excellent driving roll, heading SE cross country.
• Get Nadia to check the news. Toxic spill, prevailing wind, military evacuation,
• Team continue SE, trying to use roads where they can.
• Shimazu reaction checked. Stops as team spills out in the road, wearing NBC suits. Biotech roll, one guy with GSW, very badly hurt.
• Look at truck, Aswon gets Shimazu to flash the lights, one approaches.
• What unit are you with / It's civilian, do you need help / Yes, we need to get our man to hospital / Where's the rest of your platoon / Ambushed by terrorists /
• Spot the truck being outflanked, call out and tell them to all come around the front - they will take one and the injured.
• Aswon - spots the spear being "hungry"
• Load the guy into the truck, distributes his ammo. In and checking over the casualty, Aswon assenses - 4 successes. Worried, paranoid
• Shimazu checks the wounded over - and they've done everything right
• Can you get us over the border to TCL / Yes / What about the rest of my team? / No, we can smuggle 2 people, not more. And besides, they were trying to get past and round the truck.
• Discussion in the team, make offer to the guy, can we get a passphrase, we can try to make arrangements.
• Nadia suggests to Shimazu contacting her dad, using the courier firm. Calls Turul, asks about Nadia, Shimazu briefs him on the mission, told the drivers are not going north because of the news reports
• Back to Quarry - airline toilet and crew rest bunks, all fitted well with good rolls on B/R from Marius. Marius all done by 4-5pm. After that does general maintenance, and starts research on stealthing a chopper. Gets message from Hunter. "What have they done to my truck" Then he contacts Nadia to get the skinny.
• Marius does downloads, then go find Kai.
• Aswon - talking to guy, you weren't involved in the toxic cloud, right? Right. Who is after you.
• No - there was a rich reward mentioned, How many zeros / for free / aswon frowns, but realises it was serious. Advises of the seperate pickup of the team, guy calls his team on small but high tech sat phone, told to pay the company separately.
• 500km to border, probably about 7 hours on back roads.
• Change the profile of the truck once they hit more main roads. Listen to the news, pipe into the back so the dudes can hear.
• Check for bugs, spots the squad gear and trackers. Continue to head to the border, explain to the guy the plan for the crossing.
• notice fuel is cheap near the border, fill up, costs 2k.
• Get to the border, queue, guy working the line for "VIPS", bribes 250 Ny, go to "red zone", same bribe again, lets them through. Into the TCL, go past the early locations from the campaign, head into baku
• Get to Baku Hospital, spot the bodyguard squad and the Kildar, show the dude the Kildar, big beaming smile.
• Chat with the Kildar - this is twice we've met now, how did you come across Yousif. Gives contact card "Mike Duncan - Security Analyst" Hunter gives Kai contact details.
• Escort them to the pharmacy - give him what he wants, on my tab.
• Aswon gives him some truffles, apologies for before, says it hurts them more.
• Asks about the other men, told about arrangements, Kildar happy. Then orderly comes to door and gives thumbs up - Kildar releived, strawberry vodka
• What do you want - they ask to confir, he goes to check on his guy, they chat in the office.
• This is about 4am friday morning
• Team look for "safe passage / harbour - no reward, make friends,
• Get back to the ranch for about 6am, get breakfast and showers and say hello to the ranch.
• Team check up with Baku transport on the pickups and pass details to the Kildar
• Friday morning - Marius checks in with team, he has to divert around the cloud about 1400km, they have 600km train journey, probably about the same journey duration.

We've already played the next week - meeting up and making preparations in Batumu, so I've got that to start writing tonight and try and get some more done Monday - but it almost certainly won't get done by Tuesday, so I'm *still* going to be a week behind. Hopefully things will calm down a bit and I'll get back on top of things soon.

Smuggler session 121 is now live and can be read at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57735763103964/

So, this week we managed to get the team all back together again, having dropped the NPC and the spare vehicle off back at their ranch. When they got together, they discussed the capture of the storage again, and they did some digging into the scorpions - I did their knowledge check, and they weren't great unfortunately... so the size and scale of the problem *may* have been slightly exaggerated.

As a result they're spending 3 days making the folding pet cage from hell to ensure that they don't have motherfracking scorpions on no motherfracking helicopter - which is fine by me. At least they're equipped for hunting barghest and dire bears in the future now...

Generally they seemed to be getting geared up for the run to Desert Wars now, and have their heads in gear - but unfortunately they've not kept a low profile, and the picture of Hunter is doing the rounds on the shadow scene. Inevitably, someone saw him and has called it in, and there's a strike squad on the way. At least they did spot the spy (though on the last possible day), and are now gearing up to go and deal with him and work out what to do.

As usual, here are the raw notes from the session in case anyone wants to compare with the story and see how much the story has changed or been elaborated...

• Ground Team great journey to Batumi, all goes swimmingly
• Call the house - engaged
• Aswon calls Germaine, marvellous time, she has been hunting the local gribblies, she did get the letter, and the dolls, wants to know if the dolls were from Kai or Aswon, Aswon says it was his idea, but from the team.
• Marius/Kai/Tads - awful day. Massive delays, military escalations, non perishable goods, no passengers, constantly having to wait for clearance.
• End up with ground team having 2 hours to go for a really nice meal before air team turn up. Air team ask for takeouts.
• Ground team spotted by one of the local mafia dude while at the restaurant, get scoped out.
• Aswon waiting at his table, he comes out, double take, back into the loos. Aswon goes into the vestibule, mop+bucket, hears the dude inside, in georgian "yeah, they definitely spotted me"
• Aswon says "do you work for mr Kulkachev" He comes out, hands phone over.
• In town? Passing through? Anywhere nice? Probably not. Do we need to pay our respects? Welcome to come in for lunch / waiting for rest of team, don't want to keep you waiting / well, good travels. Do me a favour and disconnect, hand the phone back and then shake your head with disappointed look.
• Aswon gets some food "to go", with plans to get a nasty burger as well as the initial gift.
• Pass a leather trader stall, does repairs, get some belts made.
• Listen to the news, find out about CAT joining the CC, Fuchi/Renraku fighting, fuel prices falling after SK release hundreds of thousands of barrels.
• Team reunites at cargo side of airport.
• Showing the rest of the team the new kit, talk about warding the new hidey holes, and actually just doing the outside of the chopper.
• Give Marius some burgers, he complains about the delays, give him the proper food. Marius complaining about Kais plan to shoot down another plane and then go rogue in the chaos
• Marius surprised at turning down Mr K's dinner invitation, some talk amongst team, Kai says he will call
• Tads making sure she samples the new food from the restaurant.
• Kai calls, answer, "The Hill", explains about team, wait 60 seconds, then K answers.
• Talk, are you heading sandy or leafy. Bring me mil-tech. Lost in the sand.
• 500 overnight fee and food, and then 16k for chopper fuel
• Sat 24/4/60
• Aswon asking about the scorpion enclosures - sudden silence...
• Aswon and Hunter going to the docks to get raw materials - call the brother.
• Talk about making an enclosure, working out the weights and sizes, will probably weigh several tonnes, agree to meet for breakfast to discuss requirements with him
• Aswon working out paracritters (5+3) to think about enclosure and crates
• Chat over
• Marius and Kai stay with the chopper, rest go to town to the docks.
• Fold away big enclosure, 3 days labour, case of wine, 7k for 3 days
• Tads looking at sending a spirit to protect the site,F3
• Marius checking the chopper, then doing research, planning on going to Egypt, legit
• Kai learning N.African languages
• Sun 25/4
• Sun morning - no spot
• Monday 26/4/2060
• Monday morning - Aswon spots a scope. has another look, warns the team. It's where he would set up a hide
• Marius spots a "thermal oddity" Tads goes to scout, spots a person on the roof, does a recon, no hostility, watchful, some cyber and essence loss, no weapons visible.
• Kai heading to the building in a high vis with clipboard to "inspect" the building.

Next week they head out to the flats to "talk" to the spy and work out what to do about it...

Smuggler session 122 is now published, and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57753171208964/

A fairly straightforward week, though they did surprise me a little. Up onto the rooftop they went, to confront the espionage agent. He tried to sidle away, then pulled his light pistol when it went downhill. Fortunately Kai had his armour vest on, and wasn't too badly hurt, and once Shimazu got into the fight, that was pretty much that. After healing everyone up, I was expecting some interrogation - they could find out about the ZIC hit squad on the way to recover Hunter, and work out what to do - shootout on the airport? Go air to air and defeat them with magic? Run and hide?
But no - instead they offed him, there and then. Fair enough - so they get a little info from his phone, but not much - and instead of having a corporate espionage agent as a level 1 contact for having spared his life - now they have the ire of a lot of people in Batumi, for getting ready of their useful corporate snitch and muckracker. Well, free will is a bugger sometimes, but better not to railroad them!

After that, it was a case of laying low, then getting out of dodge before the cavalry turns up.

Kai's cunning plan was pretty good, and the hit team stopped part way between Sochi and Batumi in a good ambush spot, aiming to force them down away from prying eyes. They waited as long as they could, then diverted, got fueled up and then headed back to continue their search for the team.

As usual, here are the notes from the session:

• Date: Monday 26/4/2060, Location: 41.60507, 41.61167
• Monday morning - Aswon spots a scope. has anohther look, warns the team. It's where he would set up a hide
• Marius spots a "thermal oddity" Tads goes to scout, spots a person on the roof, does a recon, no hostility, watchful, some cyber and essence loss, no weapons visible.
• Kai heading to the building in a high vis with clipboard to "inspect" the building.
• Head out in the jeep with Kai to drop him off, take Shimazu to stay just in the stairs. Aswon gets a weapon and puts "stuff" on it to make it look intimidating.
• Marius asked to keep a general eye on the location. Aswon and Hunter ready to clean assault rifles on the back ramp at the signal. Aswon has big rifle to hand just in case. Tads staying with Hunter and Aswon in case spell support is needed.
• Kai and Shimazu drive off, maglock is weak and front door forced. Exit to roof has broken alarm. Shimazu waits at the top, Kai out and says "morning", guy tries to hide, wanders up to say hello. "do you have a permit to be up here". Kai spots the spotting scope and tablet for notetaking
• Kai - "name? ID?" He is wearing a body cam, kai has spotted, starts to pack up - not saying a word to Kai. "It's either bird spotting, or NOT bird spotting".
• Kai "we can do this with paperwork or not..." Dials as he looks at Kai, taser to the face, phone to waist - kai spots he is dialling, commanding voice - phone now, hands it over, then freaks, who are you, Kai calls Shimazu, guys starts to back off, Kai tases him, 2 on the dodge, 2 on the soak, takes an M. Roll for init. Shimazu quick draws pistol and then runs over. Kai shoots with Taser, takes another M after dodging, most of the way around the hvac, guy buys one success - 8L light pistol with ex-ex to the ribs. Shimazu closes to engage in CC, hits him for S after staging, guy goes down with a cracked elbow.
• Kai does biotech, passes, Hunter and tad get ready to head over. Kai checks the phone - in georgian. Hunter recognises. Shimazu checks the gun - ex-ex,. Wait for Hunter and Tads to get there. Tads does a heal, fixes Kai, Aswon asks Marius to keep eyes on the sky because of kicking off. Tads fixes the spy with heal.
• Check Medins phone, get details of contacts and messages, contact with "Otto" in the contacts book. reset the phone and tablet to basic number, no thumbprint. Find all the details of his 3 days of surveillance, details of the teams activity for the last 3 days. Random roll - corp will phone him in 30 minutes. Kai announces intent to kill him, Tads leaves, roll him in blanket, leaves him - Aswon interrupts eventually - NO, bring me the thermal blanket. Conceal the body under some pipes, stripped naked. Take the clothes. Try his banking app - enter 2 wrong passwords, Kai does the killing blow. Get back through the airport security. Bug scanned, buzzes as messages arrive. Turn off the lcoation services. Advises that team is coming today, continue surveillance. Shimazu, Hunter and Aswon heading to the shipyard to check in. Tads doing research on weapon foci, .
• Kai - trying to work out if he can do counter intel - asks for ETA, may have to move due to circumstances. 5 mins - team should be here by 12... its now 10.
• decide to move the chopper just outside ATC control, to the north, wait for the construction to finish, then load and go. Copy the tablet and take all the data, destroy the original
• Plan tell them the team left in a different direction. Marius plan route to sochi and file flight plan.
• Check the contact list for contacts at the airport - 3, baggage, tickets and check-in. plan to send bad copy of flight plan to them as decoy.
• Marius does computer check, finds the contact number matches the first 9 digits of ZIC headquarters in Switzerland.
• Shipyard team - 6 successes on a S5 test to improve process.
• Kai sends message saying "they have left, in a hurry! will see if I can get info", 5 mins later, response "excellent", chopper lands north of the city
• 11:30 message "confirm previous intel". Kai turns phone off - destroys it. Enemy team land ok, short of fuel
• Ground team finished at 15:30, load up and get on the way
• Meet up with the chopper team, then take off and head out to over the black sea, heading vaguely towards constantinople in case they need to stop - as otherwise the route is 1435km and they will be landing on fumes

Smuggler session 123 is now published and can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/kren-cooper/...57756426263964/

A double whammy this week - otherwise known as "Kren needs to catch up with the play sessions or it's all gonna go to shit..." I have been running a week behind for the last two weeks, and I've finally managed to muster up both the time, and the writing energy to get all caught up. I really had to - I'm away next weekend doing photos at a LARP event, and otherwise I'd end up two weeks behind, and that's just not a fun thing to contemplate.

So - what happened this week?

Well, I gave them a little show of what was looking for them, just to make it clear that the threat was real. Marius made a mess of his Helicopter recognition test, so I vastly over-egged the size of the chopper and its capabilities, which he then faithfully passed on to the team as gospel... bless'im.
They managed to get across Turkey with only one random encounter thrown in, and that was a fairly benign one - just a bit of positive background count from a location. The main enemy was their fuel range, and if the pilot hadn't gotten quite so many successes so consistently on the handling checks through the journey, it would have been an issue. As it was, I was happy to get them there and land them, to keep the story moving forwards.

The most amusing part for me was the teams reactions to the news that there were goats up in the hills. They were unphased by cerberus hounds, were actively looking forward to scorpions ("for training" they said!) and snakes were ok. When I mentioned goats, two of the players had flashbacks, then there were statements of "I'm out" that would have done Dragons Den proud.

Next session should see the team push on towards Africa and the desert, and we can start making survival rolls and having a desert adventure!

Here's the notes...

• Sensor check, spot the searching chopper, perception check good - ID check, AWFUL. Fed false info - Westland 1200 series with platoon of troops, minigun, multiple air to air missiles - Marius "fuck me, they're loaded for bear", Hunter navigation check - work out they are on the course from Batumi to Sochi - i.e. matching the course they filed.
• Talk about route - plan to stay north of turkey, outside the 12 mile limit - handling check, unsurprisingly good,
• Plan route, cutting down east of constantiniple - Hunter computer check, makes journey about 1500km - discussion, cut the corner off, or stop and refuel. Bit of a discussion, start to turn in just past Bafra, Hunter check - going past the capital, likely to have military presence, may need careful navigation. Tads brings up more legal links between the chopper and IDs again
• Aswon wants to file a flight plan due to the location, thinks it's safer. Marius says he has no experience with the stealth flying. Hunter works out flight path from Bulgaria and starts a flight path. Aswon suggests a new transponder setting.
• File a flight plan - 7k for permits, certifications and other red tape - logging all details for this in the DB.
• heading down over turkey to west of ankara - Tom rolls for random encounter - gets a hit, positive
• Positive background count - near Kabruk, flying over a "miracle" birth at a monastary
• Flying on - looking for news articles about the place, otherwise ignoring
• Marius vehicle stealth - 10, Ankara fails to pickup.
• uneventfyul second half
• Aswon makes food, including portion for grandfather.
• arrive near smuggler base at around 20:30
• get low fuel warnings then more fuel warnings, marius easing down speed to stretch the fuel
• Tads remembers "wrong" password (botch roll), but corrected by Marius and his photographic memory,Minos-Papprika-229-Vaggelis-Chatzis
• subtle beacon lights up, guiding the team in on ILS
• landing - very restricted teerrain -perfect landing. Killing the engines before they die from lack of fuel
• Tads asks if he needs someone else trained to cover the engines with dust covers? Marius says it's a hunter job, as it's hard manual labour...
• See the three locals arrive. Kai pushed forwards to talk to them
• Lower the rear ramp, heads out,
• Hoi chummers, what you want
• Hoping for some fuel
• We're just a bunch of locals
• Shame, we're on just a zephyr of fuel - or is that who told us about you.
• Quick look astrally - get a read on them.
• Kai shows the zephyr card - asks about rules - pay for your fuel, your beer, clean up and don't leave a mess, don't bring trouble. Oh and don't argue with Ibrattea!
• Smugglers introduce themselves, team introduce themselves including Hunter (who they don't recognise)
• Are you staying in the craft or the dosser / is it warded asks tads / no, turns up nose, Warned not to go up in the hills - paracritters,
• Cerberus hounds, scorpions, snakes, goats - whoa! we're out.
• Rest heading into the doss house
• Give them the truffles , to eat, no, to sell to fools with more money than sense
• Refuel - 16k, almost empty, spot the facilities,
• Tads asks Kai to ask for water / oat storage. Make serious efforts to top up their stocks
• Aswon sleeps for a few hours then starts warding, F6, 3 weeks, light stun
• Marius checks in with Nadia - she has been busy helping out with the ranch, warns about germaine, gets a bit teary as she is missing Marius. He tells her about his day and what they are up to. Bores her with the details of the delayed flight, until she is no longer upset
• Shimazu calls Dr Mohammed, straight to VM, leaves an introduction, asks for teaching.
• Hunter calls Julius, warns him that he is now known to be alive, warns him about the video, . Julius asks what he is up to, he says he is off for a desert trip,