Welcome to the Living in the Shadows: Shadowland OOC thread. This is where all administrative matters such as rolls, questions, and out of character discussion (if necessary) will be held. Ditaki is the primary Matrix World GM, but questions may also be directed to myself or Tisoz.

Also, players are encouraged to submit ‘flavor’ posts for the Shadowland IC thread. Similar to how in numerous sourcebooks information comes from runners who owed Shadowland a favor, players are encouraged to ‘assist’ Shadowland by posting information of interest to their fellow runners. Additionally, for those who have Shadowland as a contact, this will most likely come into play, where you are ‘asked’ to contribute data. May as well contribute before you’re asked, lest you be asked for something really hard.

Please note, however, that because the Shadowland IC is an in-character thread, whatever is posted there is NOT necessarily true. Like anything else in the Shadowrun world, you can never be entirely sure if what you get is on the up and up. Just remember that, and take what you read on the thread with an appropriate dose of paranoia. Enjoy!

General LITS Information

Living in the Shadows: Guidelines
Living in the Shadows: Recruitment 1 (closed; see LITS: Recruitment 2)
Living in the Shadows: Recruitment 2
Living in the Shadows: Special Projects

Main LITS Threads

Living in the Shadows: SR 3 OOC
Living in the Shadows: SR 4 OOC
Living in the Shadows: IC Jan 1st - Jan 7th
Living in the Shadows: IC Jan 8th - Jan 14th
Living in the Shadows: Shadowland OOC
Living in the Shadows: Shadowland IC

Useful LITS-related Links

Living in the Shadows: Story Index Page
Useful Calendar Link for 2063
Seattle Sprawl Map

LITS Run Index

Living in the Shadows: The Warehouse Job OOC 1 (closed)
Living in the Shadows: The Warehouse Job IC 1 (closed)
Living in the Shadows: Running Over the Edge OOC 2 (closed)
Living in the Shadows: Running Over the Edge IC 2 (closed)
Living in the Shadows: Salvation OOC 3
Living in the Shadows: Salvation IC 3
Living in the Shadows: A Short Victorious War OOC 4
Living in the Shadows: A Short Victorious War IC 4

I'm assuming we won't have to specify a location when we post (as it's obviously the shadowland node), should I assume we are to post times?

Still post times. Location is optional. It's in the instructions in the Shadowland IC thread. Anyway, go nuts!

Nice to meet all of ya. I've got a really good feeling about this.

A side note for my post: "he chu-sheng he za-jiao de zang-huo" is Mandarin, and it means "filthy fornicators of livestock". Link.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find my copy of Matrix right now. What're the rules for a datasearch? Is it just an Etiquette (Matrix) test? What modifiers are there?

(ETA): OK, assuming it's a straight-out Etiquette test (with unknown modifiers) to see if I can track down any information about connections between Wuxing and the Triads, I'll roll and get:

10, 4, 1, 1.

And perhaps another to investigate details on what Triad factions are most active in the Seattle area, with associated information about them and their concerns.

11, 9, 2, 1.

Just as a side note -- in the original concept of the character, her Triad enemies were related to her actions against Wuxing. However, that can go either way in this game.

I've got a couple of things to post. Expect updates in the morning tommorow.

[EDIT]As a side note, Lady Cheng's character sheet is buried deep within the Idiot's Guide to the Matrix thread, is it not?[/EDIT]

Not exactly. That was one with a bit of experience and a substantially better deck and set of programs. PM me your email, and I'll drop the Excel and Word files I've got with all her stats to you.

I'm back. Ditaki, you've surpassed my expectations already. Keep going strong with it, I'm getting a real kick out of your work, not to mention how excellently done it is.

Thanks. My net access might be a little spotty these next few days. I'm moving to college on Thursday, so, I don't know how much time can be devoted to the net over the next few days. I just put up another news snippet, and I'm pretty sure I'll have time for one more. Everything should be settled down in a week, though.

Virgil regularly volunteers at homeless shelters in the barrens and is always on the lookout for ways to provide magical aid. After reading your post on shadowland seattle he would certainly go to investigate the girl and proivde what help he can as well as learn more about this new phenomena.
Since this post was in shadowland, but Virgil wishes to investigate in the physcical world, do we handle the investigation outside of this post?

Yes, any real-world activity would be taken care of in the real-world IC page, not the Shadowlands IC page. Sorry for any confusion.

Sorry -- a quick in-post edit to the dates. It's meant to be an overview of a few odd stories over the past year.

Bump. This topic's nearly fallen off the bottom of the list.

ha, good job kurukami

Hoi, chummers, want to earn a little extra karma?

I need someone to write end-of-game-day police digest reports as released by Sheepdog, four or five short stories each, more or less the style you just saw. Each digest earns a bonus karma point.

Oh, and WinterRat or I might occasionally be e-mailing you with one of the stories to drop into the digest.

The next one will be due between (in-game) 2300 and 2400, January 5, 2063.

Who's up for it?

I know that I already PMed you, but figured I'd post here as well. I can do that next police report. Question about the time though.
Do I determine the time to post based on my characters timeline, or will the time be advanced at some point?

Danke, banditf50.

Please base the time off the most advanced active on-the-street doings in the LitS thread, regardless of who's doing them: because that's what it will be playing against ... so as soon as activities advance from ~ 1600 to closer to 2300, the next one (January 5) should go up.

Feel free to draw from things PCs have done that you think would make a police report

Okay, peoples, I need another willing victim -- ah, volunteer, this time to cover Socialite's entertainment updates.

At the very least we'll need them sometime in-game between 0800 and 0900 every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. You can add any new clubs if you like (if they're not canon, give us a general sense of where they are), skip a few clubs in any given update as long as you don't forget they exist (unless some PC went and burned them down), and as we well know from the entertainment scene, 99% of bands are here today, gone tomorrow. Same deal re WinterRat or me occasionally PMing you with something specific. Again, each entertainment digest earns a bonus karma point.

You can use Socialite to make other comments in-thread as well. We'll just count those under regular karma.

Out of curiosity, is that volunteer required to do any of these posts every single time, or can they switch off?

Well, ideally I'd like to have it as a consistent voice, but we don't live in an ideal world

Up we go.

Just a reminder that anyone is welcome to post on Shadowland, player or GM. Speculation, newspaper articles, advertisements, regular columns: all are welcome. Heck, if you just "acquired" a vehicle in-thread that you're looking to sell, or if if anyone actually wants to buy (or seriously negotiate down the price of) that Scoot of Lance's: go right ahead and post. Just remember, as in all things Shadowland: caveat lector, reader beware.

Since this place kind of grew organically, and since I'm also trying for some degree of consistency in my webbing of this bizarre corner of the Matrix, here's the tree structure I've been using:

THE MARKETPLACE

• Classifieds
• Personals

OP-ED

• Agendas
• Rants (and other editorials)

MAGICKNET

SEATTLE

• The Barrens
• Current Events
• Entertainment
  • Seattle Nightlife
• Unexplained Phenomena

CFS

The Corner of Grail


If you want to follow this structure in your posting, you'd be writing something like this:
22:31:07 Monday 08 January 2063
Shadowland Seattle -> Seattle -> The Barrens
or
Shadowland Seattle -> The Marketplace -> Classifieds

For now, outside Seattle, the section on the CFS is the only existent one because that's the only other place that's evoked active posting. As you post about events happening in other places, or as you find gaps in the current structure that need filling (ie. you've written something that doesn't fit anywhere else), I'll open up more sections. Eyes, I opted for placing your post under "Entertainment" rather than "CFS" because of its broad-based appeal.

Fyi I know about the coding bugs in the two Marketplace pages, but there shouldn't be any others in the Shadowland section. If you find any, let me know.

One more note:

Although you can only initiate IC discussions based on the date of your personal storyline, you can respond to / comment on anything that's dated before your storyline time.

That should make Shadowland participation much easier for almost everyone

Since I got asked about this yesterday, I'll just write out a general rule-of-thumb here.

If you want to respond to or comment on any of the Personals or Classifieds, first you have to make sure the date of the notice is on or before your personal storyline date. Any response should match your personal storyline date. Beyond that, there's several different ways to do it.

You can break into the code to post a comment. (Skai Hai frowns on this, but generally turns a blind eye unless it starts getting overused.)

You can take out another Personal or Classified notice to respond.

If you're following instructions to respond via LTG or PM, you'd post your intent in this thread, the same way you normally would in any OOC thread, and write up your character's actual actions IC in the main LitS thread: ie. your PC would be calling someone or sending out a PM. (Check out Avalanche's story for one example of in-post PMing.)

There's probably several other ways to respond I haven't even thought of -- and that's without going into the violent ones

Fyi Winterrat, please fix the link in the first post of the IC Shadowland thread to make it link to the Shadowland OOC thread (#5075, not #5074).

The translation of the Japanese in this post is (very loosely -- the character's Japanese is about as good as mine, which is to say not very) "arson becomes the fires of war, may I beg you for your help?" The linked words (translated in yellow) are in kanji (Japanese characters), the rest in romanji (the alphabet we use here). I'd say you'd require a 3+ in written Japanese not to have to make a roll for the kanji. Anyone more skilled in Japanese nuance might catch that despite the awkward grammar, the choice of words suggests some mid-high level of non-technical education.

Fyi -- Sheepdog's commentaries on anything outside her reports tend to be almost non-existent. She says what she says, she'll talk somewhat about it, but she doesn't usually doesn't do more than lurk elsewhere; and she doesn't ever spill department business.

I'm still okay with people using her as an active NPC. Just -- keep that in mind?

WinterRat: please correct the link in the first post of the Shadowland IC thread, to link to the Shadowland OOC thread (this one). It's a bit useless, otherwise.

Sedna- Fixed

Thanks

Dragon doesn't understand the terms Annie just used.

I know. I don’t either, so that makes two of us. How do you want me to respond to the time question? Since I’m playing ‘ahead’ of where I’m actually at, I really have no clue how to answer because a lot depends on how the events in ASVW play out, obviously. Should I just wait to let things unfold there first, or did you have any suggestions on how I can play in two ‘times’ at once?

This chat doesn't affect anything instantly in other-time; and your actions in ASVW time don't affect anything in this chat ... do they?

Other than that, I'm going to assume you survive (which means you can have this chat), and that you're on-line somewhere close to this time. If I have to, I'll fudge the exact time a bit in the webbing to make it work -- probably won't be a problem at all, but I can't see being much more than half an hour off in any case. (It's not like we haven't had to do that in the core threads on occasion!)

Finally, the topic of this chat is probably completely separate from the events happening in ASVW: so unless you're planning on telling Annie the details of what transpired a few hours earlier at the Spaghetti Palace, I see no problems with running this real-time simultaneous. If you're setting a meet-time, well, any agreed-upon time always involves juggling other events around it, as well as the constant possibility of urgent re-scheduling. (Just ask Caska.)

Okay with this?

Works for me. The only real thing I was worried about was the ASVW situation degenerating into an ongoing chase/battle/running to ground and hiding (kinda like yesterday) that might cause time conflicts, but if it’s ok with you, I’ll metagame a bit and set the time for the meet far enough into the day that even if the ASVW situation degenerates greatly, it should still leave me with a good amount of leeway to make it. And like you said, if you’re fine with fudging the times Dragon is online a bit to make things work, that’s fine with me.

I'm fine with it

Even in a private chatroom, each post still logs a name. Which one is Dragon using?

Zhuge Liang still. It's fixed in the IC thread now. Thanks for pointing that out.

You should like the next post then

Ok, I'm laughing enough that my assistant is looking at me funny. 'Metaphorical or Literal?' Pure comedy gold.

EDIT: Ok, y'all are going to get me fired if you keep this up.

I said I read about him, not knew him. And I asked because I thought he was an urban legend. Stuff you hear about but never expect to actually see or experience. You know, like people who don’t wear armor in the Barrens, the Easter Bunny, the corporate executive with the heart of gold, that kind of thing.
->Zhuge Liang


Gee thanks WinterRat1

Just trying to think of stuff no one would believe was real.

Like the Easter Bunny. Where on earth could he possibly show up in a Shadowrun game?

EDIT:

Who else did you think was running the Blimp of DOOM!tm? Jet Black?

And yes, I am a boss, but not the boss. Luckly, my boss is out golfing today.

I caught it. On the other hand, you now have only yourself to blame

Great, what next? The Hot Air Balloon of DOOM tm? Hot air balloon dropping grenades or something?

Hmm…maybe I shouldn’t have pointed that out twice…

And the Easter Bunny wasn't inherently lethal, I might add. In fact, as I recall, he was a rather friendly and helpful fellow.

EDIT: And Alleycat took a swipe at the poor guy anyway.

You could have a cybered bunny with dykoted cyberfangs.

He would be programmed to kill a target and then hop away.

Oh I have to use this.

Don’t forget egg-shaped grenades.

In Earthdawn, the preces was a meat-eating rabbit. When it was in heat, it was liable to attack any living creature without warning, often with deadly results.

Heck, even in RL I don't have any particular emotional attachment to the Easter Bunny or any of its mythological kin. Why should I? I'm not nostalgic over an idealised innocence that never existed as we seem to wish to remember it.

Why be so surprised that when Alleycat was being forced to extremes eroding her own nature, partly due to the machinations of some entity which happened to wear the shape of a costumed rabbit, it took every WL point she had not to simply slice up the creature? It's the Sixth World! Will o' the wisps and other fairy creatures aren't nice!

(Besides which, "lethality" is defined in terms of ending existence -- which can also be interpreted as ending of everything one has learned to associate with existing. In that sense, your Easter Bunny was very lethal indeed.)

Sedna- Consider the conversation 'bounced' back to you. I'm just stuck on a response.