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Full Version: The Found Arcana - Chapter 9 [OOC]
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Gilga
Here’s what we currently know about our neighborhood: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...is/touristville

Here’s our shared lifestyle: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...gative-services

Chapter 1: Sunday, September 18, 2078
Chapter 2: Monday, September 26, 2078
First Interlude: Saturday, October 1, 2078
Chapter 3: Monday, October 10, 2078
Second Interlude: Sunday, October 16, 2078
Chapter 4: Sunday, November 6, 2078
Third Interlude: Wednesday, November 23, 2078
Chapter 5: Thursday, November 24, 2078
Fourth Interlude: Sunday, November 27, 2078
Chapter 6: Thursday, December 22, 2078
Fifth Interlude: Sunday, January 1, 2079
Chapter 7: Friday, January 20, 2079
Sixth Interlude: Wednesday, February 1, 2079
Chapter 8: Sunday, February 5, 2079
Seventh Interlude: Wednesday, February 8, 2079
Eighth Interlude: Tuesday, February 14, 2079
Chapter 9: Thursday, March 2, 2079
Tecumseh
Mato's sheet is here: https://stormy-waters-2075.obsidianportal.c...characters/mato

(Still being updated with upgrades)
Jack_Spade
Bobby's sheet is here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/107f...wr2Q/edit#gid=0

Beta
And Tamarind's is here: https://brexbasicbackups.obsidianportal.com...acters/tamarind
Thanee
Raven

Real Name Rachel Moore
Archetype Urban Witch
Metatype Human
Gender female
Age 26
Height 1.60 m (5' 3")
Weight 54 kg (120 lbs.)
Hair dark brown
Eyes green
Skin fair

Picture of Raven

Character Sheet
[ Spoiler ]


Status

Physical Damage □□□ □□□ □□□
Stun Damage □□□ □□□ □□□ □□

Edge □□□□

Temporary Effects
--

Sustained Spells
--

Preparations
Combat Sense F10 P8 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Combat Sense F10 P8 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Combat Sense F10 P6 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Combat Sense F10 P5 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Increase Reflexes F10 P7 (Contact Trigger, Atomizer, +3 dice when activated)
Increase Reflexes F10 P7 (Contact Trigger, Atomizer, +3 dice when activated)
Improved Invisibility F10 P8 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Improved Invisibility F10 P6 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Improved Invisibility F10 P6 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Improved Invisibility F10 P6 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Gecko Crawl F10 P7 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)
Gecko Crawl F10 P7 (Contact Trigger, +3 dice when activated)

Summoned Spirits
--

Bound Spirits
Spirit of Air F7 (Elemental Attack, Noxious Breath) □□□□□ □□□□□ □□□□
Spirit of Air F6 (Fear, Noxious Breath) □□□□□ □□□□□ □□□

Links
[ Spoiler ]


SIS Stash

Reagents (2,000 drams; hermetic)
Refined Reagents (100 drams; hermetic)
Radical Reagents (40 drams; hermetic)
Tecumseh
My IC post was getting very long so I broke it up into two. The first is more for February and the second is for March.

I believe I'm done with updates to my sheet too, which took hours. That's what I get for not spending karma for 9 months.
Thanee
Ok, let's try some Alchemy. smile.gif

Raven will prepare a few Increase Charisma Preparations for the evening. Using Command Trigger, so Raven can activate it for Mato.

She will simply use any small things that are at hand, which he can put into his pocket.

Force 4 so DV 4-3+2=3

Alchemy + Magic 4 hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 3 hits = Potency 1
Drain DV 3 3 hits (No Drain, but a lot of 1's)

We can hopefully do better than that...

Alchemy + Magic 6[4] hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 3 hits = Potency 1
Drain DV 3 1 hit (2 Stun)

Or not.

Alchemy + Magic 3 hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 3 hits = Potency 0
Drain DV 3 5 hits (No Drain)

Sure, always rolling 3 hits on 4 dice to oppose. Every single time!

Alchemy + Magic 5[4] hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 1 hit = Potency 3
Drain DV 3 5 hits (No Drain)

There is hope still! smile.gif

Alchemy + Magic 2 hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 1 hit = Potency 1
Drain DV 3 5 hits (No Drain)

Just one more decent one, please!

Alchemy + Magic 6[4] hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 4 hits = Potency 0
Drain DV 3 4 hits (No Drain)

Almost.

Alchemy + Magic 5[4] hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 3 hits = Potency 1
Drain DV 3 6 hits (No Drain)

La, la, la.

Alchemy + Magic 4 hits opposed by the Preparation's Force 0 hits = Potency 4
Drain DV 3 2 hits (1 Stun)

Finally! At least two useful ones. And a slight headache.

5 out of 8 opposed rolls had 3-4 hits on 4 dice. I want those dice! biggrin.gif

Recovery (1st hour) 1 hit
Recovery (2nd hour) 1 hit
Recovery (3rd hour) 1 hit

Three-and-a-half hours later...

Increase Charisma 4 Preparation (Potency 3; good for 18h)
Increase Charisma 4 Preparation (Potency 4; good for 24h)

Bye
Thanee
Thanee
Both Preparations will go to Mato. My idea is to use the Potency 3 one early for the First Impression, and the Potency 4 one, when the Negotiations begin.

Bye
Thanee
Beta
Tamarind would happily take a potency 1 one, if the duration on it is long enough for it to still be good. Her dice pool should be irrelevant, but just for RP/confidence.

++++++++++++++++++++++

ETA: I'm just costing her investments as a 'kit', the basics for fitting into a more white collar/professional sort of role.
Tecumseh
Thanee, you have the patience of a saint to do (and post) all that rolling.

Mato is a tough nut for Health spells because of his Essence loss. Health spells are at -5 to affect him, so any Force 4 preparation is going to have a steep hill to climb.

But, hey, if the preparations keep rolling 3 hits on 4 dice then maybe we'll squeeze a few hits out of these yet!

Thanee
Haha! I opened the three pages on Orokos and just duplicated them a few times, so I do not have to type all that stuff in there every time. biggrin.gif

Wasn't entirely sure, if that is for all health spells, or healing only (I see it now, it is specifically listed as Essence-affected). But well, every little bit might help. smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
Beta
matrix search with teamwork from her R3 agent.

On the law firm
agent matrix search (teamwork): 6d6t5 2
matrix search 9+2: 11d6t5 2

On the man himself
agent matrix search (teamwork): 6d6t5 4
matrix search 9+4: 13d6t5 4

2 on the law firm, and 4 on the man himself. Also Tamarind should have just left her agent to do the searching, as it got the same successes as she did from way less dice. Orokos is in a fine mood this week!
Gilga
Law firm: The law firm is authentic as far as you can tell. They have been in business for ten years, as they claim. It is relatively small and does not list much expertise but is said to provide 'general legal services, which feels odd. The page suggests them as "problem solvers across multi-domain problems with diverse methods". The online presence contains only the important lawyers leading the firm but no mention of Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith: Looking at Mr. Smith directly, you discover he is a family person with two small children and a wife. They live Bellevue in a gated community, where he has a nicer-looking car than the one outside. They take yearly vacations to a resort in California in the summer. Most of the family pictures are from there. His professional profile states that he has worked for the firm for the last six years, and there are few recommendations for supposed clients that were happy with his services. None of the recommendations explains what these services are, though. Before working at the firm, he was a law student at the local university, where he graduated with honors.
Tecumseh
Mato going to review the NDA. In the present day, NDA law is usually at the State level (rather than the Federal level). Presuming this is true-ish in the future, I'll roll Seattle Metroplex Law instead of UCAS Law:

Logic 4 + Seattle Metroplex Law 2: 6d6t5 1 hit

Just the basics. I'll pencil out some things he's looking for in the IC post.
Gilga
As far as Mato can tell, this NDA was professionally edited to handle any corner case its creators thought about. It is very similar to other UCAS (or Seattle) NDAs you can find online, but there are some deviations, mainly in a section describing the memory wipe, which is not a standard feature. As far as Mato can deduce, the NDA is a legally binding document.
Tecumseh
Just giving Thanee a chance to respond. Then Mato will sign.
Gilga
I Did not want to stir the flow but Mr. Smith would shake hands, and confirm that the office is open during regular business hours. Goldberg is his boss, the one with the name on the door.
Thanee
What kind of skill would it be to have some general knowledge about those tarot cards and what they are good for?

Does Arcana cover this?

Bye
Thanee
Jack_Spade
Arcana, Artifacts, Sixth World or Magical Theory would work
Thanee
Arcana 2 hits to see if Raven has heard anything about these cards before.

Bye
Thanee
Gilga
Raven has some recollection about the magic community being obsessed with new cards. Rumor has it that if you collect enough of them you get some sort of reward. Many power players try to acquire them, but few can keep them long enough to study them. So nobody knows exactly what they are, how they work, or even if they work.
Beta
Tamarind is actually quite good at magical theory (officially she studies it for "know your possible opposition" but really, like a lot of kids she longed to be magical and started learning about it on her own in hopes of somehow unlocking magic that nobody had recognized in her. After that she found that at least somewhat understanding it made coexisting with magic easier, emotionally )

Magical theory: 12d6t5 4

Gilga
For four hits, Tamarind knows about the chatter in magic social media. Within the last months, all the private collectors that studied these cards have met unfortunate events leading to a violent death in the worst case and to the card being stolen in the best case.

There is not much information about what they are, but the cards are unlikely to be magical Artifacts (even though there are some claims). Most magical artifacts are extremely old and very powerful, and no organization claims the ability to create them. Powerful foci or long-lasting alchemy is the best modern theory can explain. The cards are unlikely to be either because they are not difficult to recognize and Tamarind believes that with the level of interest, someone would say that.

The claim that the cards somehow unlock power leaves conjuring as the only field of magic that can explain what they are. They can be part of the calling ritual to some specific spirit; they could be true names of minor spirits or even parts of a true name of a great spirit. These options explain the promise of "power" as they allow commanding or at least having leverage on spirits.
Beta
By this time the team knows that Toothless is a "Medicart" (roughly human length tracked emergency response vehicle, capable of ripping open damaged vehicles and applying first aid). And that Tamarind has two "Pellican" delivery drones (aka "the Pelippers"), and a couple of "Condor" long-duration observation drones that are mostly invisible in the sky, but have speed '0' (not immobile, just not enough speed to care about in tactical situations) (Lazybones and Mimic).

In the meantime, she sets up Lazybones and Mimic to watch SIS headquarters, along with one of the The Pellipers, and two each of the spy eyes and Kanmushi (half of each of the rest of the teams so that they can take turns coming in to charge), giving a swarm of +6 (7 drones). The swarm can use the rating of her RCC in place of pilot (5), and on her RCC she'll run clearsight and pilot for the four drone types, using up all five program slots. Clearsight autosoft is R6. The swarm uses the best sensor among the drones (Lazybones & Mimic have sensor 4), but the swarm increases the limit by +6 too, to 10
So pilot 5+Clearsight 6+swarm 6 = 17 dice, limit of 4

drone patrol swarm: 17d6t5 7

If there is someone/something detectable by the drones watching SIS, I suspect that they spot it.
Beta
@Jack_Spade we were visited by Mr. Smith on Thursday evening, so presumably we are still later that evening (although maybe Bobby is just showing a sense of humour?)

For reference Toothless is a reasonably chunky drone (body 6, armour 5) but still quite a bit more fragile than most vehicles. Also not slow (ground speed 4, better than an Americar (3) and same as a Harley motorcycle). I assume medium size drones are heavy enough that nobody is going to pick one up and run off with it, and that body and armour should at least take some effort to open up. But it is neither as tough as a safe nor slow when in running condition.
Jack_Spade
That was in fact more meant as a humorous greeting.

I just realized that there is a comparatively cheap and useful qi focus Bobby would like to obtain.

Force 1 qi focus: Memory Displacement for 3000 Nuyen and R3

Negotiation+Charisma: 5d6t5 2
Market Resist: 3d6t5 1

So Bobby should be able to find someone who can tattoo that focus on him within 2 days.
Gilga
No problem about magic tattoo (or about finding someone that does them). I had some thoughts on the process.

1. Either you buy tattoos like regular foci in that case the tattoo is aesthetic and what is enchanted is the ink.

2. Or we use Tattoos as objects to be enchanted (kind of like enchanting a knife as a weapon focus) in that case you do a tattoo and then get it enchanted.

Which one would you prefer? Option 2 makes tattoos a bit more difficult than regular foci as you need to stay at the lodge for a few days until the process completes. Whereas with a knife/ring you just leave it at the shop and return to claim it once ready.
Jack_Spade
I always imagined getting the tattoo in the lodge is the point. Having a focus that can't be stolen is huge (Which reminds me - I have to get a pants power focus some of these days)
Beta
Nobody even has to read that wall of red text. I was just in the mood to make up some stuff, so wrote way too much about the Denver exodus through the Sioux.
Tecumseh
I read it. I thought it was good stuff. You could make a whole campaign out of that road trip.

Fun fact for OOC purposes: the fastest way to identify yourself as a non-local in Seattle is to call the roads "the 90" or "the 5". We will instantly presume you are from southern California. Seattle locals say "I-5" or "I-90" (the I is for Interstate). The exception is I-405 which is just "405". Same for all state highways too. "99", "520", etc.
Thanee
Good to know! smile.gif

Bye
Thanee
Gilga
@Beta, it was a good read.
Beta
Likely the Sioux renumbered/named the roads, but I just stuck with current numbering.

@Tecumseh good to know! Likewise up here locals call the crosstown expressway "The Queensway" not "the 417".
Tecumseh
There was an offhanded comment in one of the books that I-90 is now Highway 90 because it is no longer an Interstate.

I'm not sure how much the Native American Nations bothered to renumber the roads, but I think there was an effort to rename a lot of towns and geographic features.
Thanee
QUOTE
I never heard of an Urban witch, so I am uncertain how common this tradition is.


It is from the german Street Grimoire (very similar to Wicca). I assume that it is reasonably common in urban places (as "common" as magical traditions are, that are not hermetic and shamanism. smile.gif).

Bye
Thanee
Jack_Spade
Negotiations: 5d6t5 3

I'm again and again amazed how many successes Bobby can squeeze from his meager skills...
Gilga
I actually admire how dystopian it feels that for 10% extra, someone works over the weekend, but it felt right considering the dice.
Tecumseh
I always figured that talismongers had untraditional schedules anyway. Most magicians don't seem like the 9-to-5 types, except maybe the hermetics. (I think there's a line in the 2E book that says, "You try telling Coyote he can only have half an hour for lunch.")
Jack_Spade
Eh, not so much dystopia as reality for anyone self-employed

There's a joke in German what the word "selbstständig" (aka self-employed) means: selbst meaning self and ständig meaning constantly (the original root comes from Stand which refers actually to social position)

Gilga
@Jack Yeah, probably.
@Tecumesh, Own imagination has them with semi-regular jobs from doctors to security and perhaps construction, art, food industry (e.g., agricultural rituals), and movie industry (special effect "wizards"). E.g., I imagine a mage in the movie industry maintaining illusion magic for the better part of the day or the doctor working long shifts in the hospital doing very similar work to his mundane counterparts.

Of course, they can also be rare to the point where each one of them is a special snowflake, and the cooperations lets them behave whatever they like to benefit from their mojo. I have not heard a consistent view of just how rare mages are to imagine how normative it is to encounter them in the work environment.
Jack_Spade
I like to compare magical actives to programmers. Lot's of dabblers but not nearly enough full stack developers to go around as far as the corporations are concerned.
Beta
QUOTE (Jack_Spade @ Aug 21 2022, 07:34 PM) *
I like to compare magical actives to programmers. Lot's of dabblers but not nearly enough full stack developers to go around as far as the corporations are concerned.


One thing not talked about much is how many awakened just are not well suited to their magic. Clutzy introverts with social anxiety who become adepts. Low willpower or other drain attribute folk who become mages of some sort. Plus those who start with a low magic attribute . Like sure with practice and training they will get better, but lots will never get particularly good.

So yah, on top of the rarity of awakened, those who are particularly good will be even rarer.
Tecumseh
The fluff has actually been fairly consistent about the share of Awakened in the general population. The problem is it doesn't sync up very well (at all) with how the game plays. I hate that disconnect.

For as long as I can remember, the fluff has been saying about 1% of the population is Awakened. Some magically-inclined populations a little more, some a little less, but it averages out to 1% as a whole. That 1% is supposed to represent everyone, from adepts to mystic adepts to full magicians to aspected to Aware.

Compare that to your average shadowrunner team, which is half Awakened. (I did the math once on all the PCs who had ever played at the same table with me and it was almost exactly 50/50.) And the fact that most GMs will need to incorporate an Awakened element to counter the PCs' talents and you've got Awakened everywhere. Which, of course, doesn't make any sense because if only a tiny fraction of your population is Awakened then they would all be tremendous economic prizes. Given their reality-bending talents, any Awakened anywhere should be coddled like the precious superstars they are and the cornerstone of the shadow economy should be the extraction of Awakened talent.

The natural solution is to ignore the 1% figure, although I haven't spent the time to pencil out what number makes more sense. It brings up separate questions like the ratio between adept/aspected/mystic/magician/etc. talents, and about how much of a Magic rating is inherent ability vs. trained and what the distribution curve of Magic ratings should look like, pre-Initiation. Lots of fascinating macroeconomic questions that I'd like to sink my teeth into just as soon as I win a big lottery prize and snatch the publication rights away from Catalyst.
Gilga
Representation in shadowrunners makes sense due to survivor bias. Perhaps out of all the criminals, the awakened criminals are more likely to gain enough power to be shadowrunners. It makes perfect sense to me that runners need some kind of edge over the common ganger. Augmentations or magic seems very reasonable way to get to higher in the food chain.
Beta
I figure that awakened are kept in a gilded cage often enough, with to many people wanting to optimize the awakened's output (because of being a rare resource), that they are particularly prone to wanting out of corporate life, are more apt to have opportunity /ability to get out, and to then find ways to the more potentially lucrative parts of unofficial life.

Still not enough to justify to portion of runners who have magic. But presumably there are also a lot of less storied teams that don't have magic.

Both the chapters I did here involved mages. But in my home game there is not often mage opponents just hanging around waiting for trouble. A lot of middling ability mages working to make wards and watchers and sending regular spirits when something happens. But you seldom meet that sort.
Thanee
I always figured, that most mages are in the corporate or shadow area.

The number of Shadowrunners compared to normal citizens is likely way below 1%, so having a mage or two on every team would actually work out.

The overrepresentation is often due to the fact, that only a fraction of the populace is looked at. One were the awakened gravitate towards.

Bye
Thanee
Jack_Spade
Yes, also consider how many million people are working in soul crushing wageslave jobs. For every million of those there are 10.000 magic able people around who would do anything but those jobs.
Tecumseh
I think we're ready to fast-forward to the morning. Gilga, would you like any additional posts from us to make that happen?
Gilga
By the way: AM's birthday is April 1.
Tecumseh
Cool, cool. Is that connected to anything or is that just an FYI for the timing of the next chapter/interlude?

ICly, was someone going to remain behind in the car? I know it was a suggestion but I don't know if anyone decided on that definitively.
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