So, here's what it sounds like to me:

We have a group of people who mostly live in the same neighborhood. For whatever reason they were all in an area together when the SB hit. The shockwave killed some of them, wounded others. You band together to seek shelter in (Rodent's) Garage.

You guys spend about a week together, foraging for food, tending wounds, and bonding.

When the disaster is over, you all go your separate way, but now you hang out together.


That sound about right?

Rex is The Kid. [Was, is, will be.]

He's the kid you grew up with who never went home, and no one was sure if he even had parents. [Never Grow Old.]

He smokes, he drinks, yet no one takes him seriously. [Life's a Slitch and then you die so frag the drag lets get high.]

He's the kid who only went to school for the food and a dry roof over his head.[I left after lunch unless it was raining.]

He's also the kid who showed up at the biker bar when you had your first beer and smacked down 3 Stilletoes who thought they could play with the new kid on the block. [My knuckles still hurt from that one.]

I really, really like your character concept, BGMFH.

my character (gotta come up with a name) no doubt still lives in the barrens.. even though she hitches rides and buses downtown, changes clothes in some public restroom, and gets a taxi or towncar to pick her up from there (depending on where she's going). have to keep up appearances, after all.

I'm thinking someone important to her probably died during the accident.. family, maybe.. not dead from the shockwave, but from the mass panic afterwards.. she probably blames being poor and living in such a bad area for the death(s) and that's part of the reason she's so hell bent on climbing the ladder.. money is safety.. or something.

(rambling)

Works well crechebaby.

Rex is the kind of guy who could blow a billion dollars cash in a year or two and never mind the fact that hes back in the barrens, because he has the stories to tell.

Maybe... I'm thinking a human or ork physad with some emotional issues. Gotta work on it quite a bit before I have anything worth posting about, though

BGMFH: I loved the delivery for your character, but am I reading it wrong or something? He seems to come across as that annoying trouble-causing freeloader who's always leeching off you that you can never get rid of. Why would we have warmed up to him, and why would he have warmed up to any of us? Both seems to be almost antithesis to him.

Just a word-up to let everyone know that I (RoUS) decided to change my name yet again. I know it's annoying, but I was getting equally annoyed with how my last name scrolled at the "Size" part, and I'm just way too anal to deal with it. Promise this will be the last name change (for at least a couple of months).

I really like the idea about the crash. I need to think a little on how my character, tentatively nicknamed Scarecrow, developed any relationships with everyone else but I don't think it'll be a problem.

I am beginning to believe that Crechebaby is my psyche twin, through, since I was hashing over being an orphan who has basically the same personal beliefs of her enviroment and her life The crash would work into that scenerio perfectly. My character isn't a hero as much as she's a survivor. Heroic in the sense that she was pushed to be, not in the sense that she has a moral drive to be.

Since, Creche and I think so much alike, maybe it would be a good idea that we are roommates. <checks to see if Creche or myself has the evil twin goatee> <looks down, only to realize that I'm wearing the Red Shirt> Damn

Okay, idea is developing. My current thought is a female ork pistoleer adept who works as a bouncer in Touristville. She goblinized as a teenager and got into a load of trouble because she started acting out (who wouldn't?). She eventually learned to focus her rage and overcome it, but by then she'd already run away and ended up in the Barrens. Not wanting to go home (and no longer welcome there) she had to scrape out an existance as a bouncer and hired thug. I'm thinking hard as nails with an appreciation for partying.

This is what they call rough

So the group's two gunbunnies are both going to be female ex-bouncers with anger issues? Hmm, that should be interesting.

Well, I'm thinking of stealing heavily from Equillibrium for fighting style and some quirk of personality, so maybe they're not quite the same Somehow I think the night one goth bouncer and the ork bouncer/aspiring goblin rocker might be pretty different aside from the basics

That, or I'll end up 360 degrees away with a different concept.

Creche: This is what was playing around in my head. That our characters probably met in kindergarten, so we are both beyond the sweetness of just friends more like each other's conscious. The one exception is whereas, Creche wants to better her "future"; Crow is a nihilistic soul and wants to better her "here and now".

So Creche can put Crow in her place and vice versa "Beeyotch I know you're not going to be spending our money on that new exhaust system that shoots flames out of your bike. I don't care what Oscar says about a really sweet deal! I'm saving for a new Merck Manual and a new PDR for school. "

What do you think?

TinkerGnome: I did plan on Scarecrow focusing more on her unarmed combat, preferring her shock hands and either fingernail razors or hand blades, but she was still going to be pretty good with a (pair) of pistols. But if you want to focus more on the gun angle, that should still be cool.

Hehehe... the sammy's the melee guru and the adept's the pistoleero. It's deliciously backwards.

I guess it was just me, then. I think it was the "He's the kid you grew up with who never went home, and no one was sure if he even had parents." and "He's the kid who only went to school for the food and a dry roof over his head." lines that were giving me that impression.

He sounds cool now that I got a better idea.

lez:
sounds cool to me the characters seem just dissimilar enough to keep each other in check. no doubt you get all pissy every time I just have to buy this season's Luis Vuitton bag, because the one I can't be seen carrying the one from the spring collection..

Exactly (and Luis Vuitton... god, I hate foofoo girls).

How about our relationships with everyone else? What do you have in mind?

Touche'

I see that you are an evil genius, Ms. Bond.

So, that puts things at:

Muscle 1: Lezzie Borden, Scarecrow (Night One Sammy)
Muscle 2: TinkerGnome (Ork Adept)
Mage: BGMFH, Rex (Human? Shaman)
Rigger: Misfit Toy, Oscar (Dwarf Rigger)
Face: crechebaby (Human? Face)
Miscellaneous: Raiko (?)

Did I miss anyone or misclassify anyone?

Okay, adept is pulling together. 110 points isn't much to work with, is it?

Just need a name, now...

You're telling me. I can only afford a VCR 1 and an okay (but fast) muscle car. Not even a Gunnery skill to speak of. It just ain't right, man... it just ain't right.

As for names, I know it's a little cheezy and generic, but I always liked Calibre for a weapon specialist/gunbunny type character. Dunno why. Have a nationality in mind? That usually helps.

Thing is, us being starting shadowrunners, it'll probably be a real name or derived from it Time to whip out the census name generator.

Hmm... maybe I'll give her a nickname she hates, like Bunny. That'd be fun.

Hehehe... I know what you mean. I gave my guy an amateurish one that he thought up of on the spot right before the meet (Lowrider). It's pretty cheezy, but I think it's believable considering the situation. In the 'hood, he's known as Oz which is derived from his real name.

I was going to use Pumpkin Escobar (kudos to anyone who knows the reference) and use Pimp as his nickname, figuring such a stupid name would be a good reason for his grumpy demeanor, but I was talked out of it. I can see Bunny working in the same way, though.

Pumpkin Escobar and Silent Scott.

I have a sneaky suspicion that you had an unfair advantage there.

Bunny, the 2 charisma ork with a temper problem. This'll work out well.

As long as she doesn't wear the Christmas outfit poor Ralphie had to wear in A Christmas Story...

Alright, my turn to ask a question of everyone. Feel free to offer any and all suggestions.

I've been tinkering around with my potential stats and only have enough cash to pimp out a single vehicle to the point where it'll be useful in a run. My choices are pretty much limited between a lowriding Caddy-style sedan and something more like an Oldsmobile 440 muscle car. I could probably work the former so that it fit all six of us, but the latter would only be able to hold four comfortably and maybe the other two if they sit on someone's lap. They'd otherwise be close to similar (the Caddy would be more defensive while the Olds would have more speed and maneuverability), so I wanted to get your guys' opinion on which one you think would be the best.

Just so you know, he's going to own both, but only one's going to be any good on a run...

Well, as for Street names...

Rex is Rex.

Has a SIN, but doesn't know it (yet.) I'll work on the character later.

Fridays and Saturdays seem to be my two worst days for posting, so I haven't caught up fully with all the background stuff yet, but at a glance it looks good and I agree with the direction we're moving in.

@crechebaby No knifefight necessary , for some reason I had thought it was BGMFH who'd said "dibs on the face."

I'm not actually interested in having the Face anyway, but I would like a B&E / Techie / Skills-Monkey in the miscellaneous slot.

So as I (mistakenly) asked BGMFH, is your Face going to fill the B&E role?

I think my techno guy would be useful anyway, as we've no decker.

Sounds like a good niche to fill, Raiko.

@ Raiko,

A techie, someone who knows technology and computers would definitely come in handy.

If you wanted you could even be a decker, but I would ask that you concentrate more on hardware then actually decking. But it could definitely come in handy for the group.

Yeah, I've just talked to crechebaby via PM, and I'll go ahead with a non B&E techie.

They'll probably have cheap deck (for info-searches) as well, but aren't likely to be what you could actually call a decker.

Everything is coming together really nicely. Go ahead and start putting your characters together, feel free to ask me questions and run rough drafts by me. Normally I am very hands off in character creation. With this game I would like to be hands on.

Feel free to post questions here, or email me. This is gonna be so much fun!

I was thinking about some possible connections between my character and a few of you. Thought I'd run them by you and see what you guys thought.

Raiko: Yours seems to have the most potential. Maybe you could be a freelancer Oz calls in to build custom multimedia systems and whatnot? Or maybe helped install the security system in his new post-crash garage?

Lezzie Borden and/or TinkerGnome: How about we used to hang out at a tattoo parlor quite a bit (I have a tattoo artist/talismonger contact named Catbones and it inspired me to this idea). Or maybe he was commisioned by the club manager of Scarecrow's goth club to do some industrial metalwork art or something, and they met there?

BGMFH: This one is the most iffy of the ideas I had. Perhaps Rex would hang out at a place really close to Oz's shop and was always causing trouble, and it wasn't until after the crash that they both warmed up to each other (and maybe still have a friendly rivaly as they pick on each other from time to time to lighten the mood)? Or maybe he even hung out at the shop under the guise of learning a new trade? I figure this would have happened while he was still in high school, and Oz would probably have encouraged it since it's how he went through school, too.

Just some rough ideas. Always open for suggestions.

misfit.. I'd so go for the muscle car.

so I've got this idea for linking Misfit's Oz and my character (who I've finally named Mercury).. credit to Misfit for working it out with me (he came up with the cool racing angle).

Merc had a little brother named Jack (who went by Boost when he raced). Their parents were junkies, and she kind of raised him. They were very close. She wanted out of the barrens, he didn't care. He had a thing for bikes and cars, and Oz's shop was in the neighborhood, so he took to hanging out there. Oz gave him a job, taught him a thing or two.. helped him build his car when Jack started racing to help feed himself and Merc.
Merc ended up being around the shop alot, too, looking after Jack, and hence the Merc/Oz connection.
long story short.. Jack gets killed during a race about a year before the crash because of a bad brake line (that Oz perhaps installed?).. taa daa.. plenty of angst to go around. Merc hated Oz for a bit (blamed him for Jack's death), but they ended up good friends eventually, especially after the crash and all that goes down around that time..

... savvy?

Ooh! How about if after Mercury and Oz started being friends, Scarecrow (who never met Oz and only knew Mercury used to hang out at some garage with her brother) brought him home from the tattoo parlor one night. Merc arrives home about twenty minutes later and because Crow forgot to tie a [whatever] on the door, Merc catches Oz and Crow in a compromising position. Hilarity ensues.

It's good to be the dwarf.

Count me in. I like the whole kit and kaboodle, though the one thing I think I'd change is that I'd say Oz hated himself just as much as Mercury did -- if not more -- in regards to the faulty break line. It's probably what got Oz out of the street racing circuit, too, explaining why his at-one-time-totally-wiz VCR is now only the equivalence of a VCR 1 six years later. Who knew SOTA could come in handy. But beyond that, I'm totally down with the concept. We can hash it out a bit more in detail in PM or whatnot, I'm sure.

I think maybe Rex will manifest as a Shaman during the Crash episode, his totem granting him access to spirits to protect the group.

Working on the concept now, just back from post. Busy night, kinda incoherent.

I like the line in the Leopard totem, p 155 MiTS "A Leopard Shaman must never allow his family to be harmed. He will attack any creature attempting such an action and will fight to the death if necessary."

Close, but not quite Rex... still looking for a totem.

A Dog Shaman seems the most logical considering he's a stray dog himself.

Anyone going to have armorer skills? I'm rather out of skill points

Does Rex do chopshop work? Because I've got a feeling that Bunny's been mixed up in some crime over the years. Probably knocking over convenience stores and car theft, maybe some leg breaking. She's not a hardened criminal, by any means, and has mostly been along for the ride.

Dunno about Rex, but Oz does a little bit of it on the side (mostly as a "fixer" through his connections via the Connected (B/S) edge these days though). At his shop he mostly just handles custom detailing, but he has the tools and know-how to do special requests for his friends. The shop itself is completely legit on the front. About the only thing illegal he does is hide the occasional package for a smuggler friend in a hidden area and that sort of thing. Back before he got started with his first shop, though, he was a pretty good car thief himself. Used to steal 'em, chop 'em up (either himself or at a mafia-linked chop shop), and race 'em 'till he got older and wiser.

Probably could have first met somewhere along those lines then?

But yeah, I know what you mean about skill points. Oy vey. I just barely crammed in enough to get the essentials. I can't afford the actual Armor B/R skill, but I can default to it and have a Metalworking knowledge skill that should be a good complimentary skill for that kind of work. If he finds himself having to do it on more than one or two occasions, I'll probably invest in the skill as we earn Karma and stuff. But until then, I'm pretty sure defaulting will be good enough.

Okay, this is getting complicated. Here are the basics of Bunny's life story.

She was a normal human girl up until she was around 12 (2050). Then she goblinzed and started to become a delinquent in response to the changes. By 2052, she runs away from home and has a string of bad relationships with guys who get her into no end of trouble including car theft and the like. When she's 16, one of her sleezy guys gives her a pistol for a present and she takes a liking to it. She finds that she's unnaturally good with it (an adept) and really dedicates much of her time to mastering it. Surviving on the streets hones some of her other skills, as well, and she ends up working as a bouncer to make ends meet. For an ork, she's not that big or strong, but she's more than capable of cracking human skulls.

I have a few more threads I want to add into that, but that's the gist. Her relations to other people likely come from the club, a mutual interest in guns, or a criminal tie.

I really like how she's developing. Perhaps she had met Oz in passing at a chop shop when her or one of her beaus of the week were trying to fence one of the cars they had boosted? Something like that? Nothing serious up until the crash...

On a character creation note, what kind of communications gear should we get? Obviously not something uber-high tech, but I'm sure between Mercury's skills as a face and Oz's smuggler connections, they could have hooked the team up with something decent for their first run.

I was thinking of Personal Comm Units (Rating 3). It has plenty of range for our purposes, isn't too insane, and has just enough encryption. At only 4,500 nuyen, it's only 1,500 nuyen more than a Rating 3 Micro-Transciever plus it comes with all the subvocal and DNI gear any of us would need. Can everyone afford one of those, or should we look to something cheaper?

And just to keep everyone up to date, here's what I have for everyone's character so far:

Muscle 1: Lezzie Borden as Scarecrow (Night One Razorgirl)
Muscle 2: TinkerGnome as Bunny (Ork Gun Adept)
Mage: BGMFM as Rex (Human Street/Urban Shaman)
Face/B&E: Crechebaby as Mercury (Human Face)
Rigger: Misfit Toy as Lowrider (Dwarf Wheelman and Detail Shop Owner)
Miscellaneous: Raiko (Tech Whiz)

Really great group so far... this game is going to rock. If only we had a troll, we'd have the entire gambit of races, too.