One of the things I like to do as I read through various news articles is pick out ones that seem to possess a certain shadowrunnish flavor to them. Sometimes I adapt them as hooks for future runs, but mostly its just entertaining.

In particular, these two recent articles struck me as a pair of crimes that had a sort of shadowrun "feel" to them - in large part because of the aura of mystery surrounding them.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/08/22...heft/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/West/08/21/coun...n.ap/index.html

That first one, in particular, I can imagine a shadowrun group going through meticulous plan after meticulous plan to bypass the security, avoid the cameras, and make off with the paintings... and then decide "eh, screw it, lets just take them by force!"

If anyone else out there does the same sort of thing, post your shadowy news stories here. I figure, entertainment value aside, that having a list of potential run ideas derived from real events seems like a pretty good idea.

(Disclaimer: Please note that I do not find the crimes themselves to be amusing, rather, reimagining them as shadowruns is something I find entertaining.)

I don't have a link but that Idema guy was tracking Bin Laden with own private mercenaries...I could totally see that as a shadow-op.

The art theft has somewhat of a shadowrun feel, as I once ran a game where the players had to steal 3 different paintings from different places. One was in a collector's mansion, one was in a museum and the third was supposed to auctioned...

The other one just feels as a random streak of violence... not really shadowrunnish at all.

I agree that the first one is more shadowrunlike than the second. But the murders seemed rather far from being random... the shadowrunlike aspect - they werent beaten to death or even robbed, just a single bullet to each of their heads out in the middle of nowhere while they slept. I just get the feeling that there was some purpose behind their deaths, but a strange, mysterious, unknown purpose.

It's the "professional" manner in which they were killed combined with the lack of any apparent motive that makes it reminiscent to shadowrun to me... were I to try to use that as the basis for a run, I would insert a purpose. Perhaps they were undercover Cross Seraphim agents whose identities were somehow compromised. I dunno.

In Threats 2 theres a news article clip talking about how a missing woman who was presumed dead for a long time "miraculously" returned home uninjured one night. If you were to read a similar article now it might not seem particularly odd... but, when presented in the context it was in that book, it suddenly seems much more sinister. Thats the sort of thing I'm doing here... imagining contexts.

I hope this makes sense... I get the feeling that I'm rambling. I'll stop now...

I think I figured out the motive for the killing. The murderer clearly had something against big ears. I mean dear god, look at the picture people and it's as clear as day! Be warned residents of Jenner, CA! If you have big ears then your days are numbered!

Yes... I'm an insenstive bastard.

Actually that would be a fun shadow run idea as well. It's somewhat hitler-esque, but I'm sure there are many groups out there who would love to see the meta humans all dead. Even better, to add that bit of work finding the connection, simply make the group of killers on who targets humans who they classify as meta-human sympathizers.

See?!? I can turn a completely off color post into a wonderful idea!

How's this for something out of Harlequin?

How is this for some kind of obscure one-upmanship? Harlequin or even SotF anyone?

How's about this?

Child kidnapper gets shot by a Chinese policeman during a hostage crisis on a ledge, at point blank range, in the head, and then falls for five stories, and is found alive in his coffin.

And in a related story, another Chinese man has a heart attack and is revived three hours later after numerous resuscitation attempts.

Anyone who's read or heard of YOTC knows what this sounds like.

Oh no! theyre here already!

Edit: Though, really, it seems more like a Threats2 reference, given that the story doesnt mention the guy immediately trying to kill whoever opened the coffin

And the bloke was an adept with freefall...

Wait a minute. I may have missed this, but where did it say he was shot in the head?

No, he was shot at point blank but no mention of being shot in the head.

Interesting.

Real applications for running to steal the technology, maybe corps looking for "test" subjects (i.e. guinea pigs) but the subjects want extracted, etc.

Here's another one from CNN....

"Spider-Man" Burglar Convicted

Curse those physads....

It doesn't get more shadowrunny than this:

Explosives found in van near consulate in Montreal
MONTREAL - Montreal police acting on a tip cordoned off a section of the city's downtown and discovered 15 firearms and as much as 135 kilograms of explosives and detonators in a parked van.

This happened last night (August 24th) so details are still getting in. Here's an article in french for those that read la langue de Molière: http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/artic...04,773238.shtml

Basically, due to a tip-off, police found inside a stolen van multitude of guns ranging from handguns to automatic weapons as well as explosives. They say the explosives were not conected to the detonators, so it looks like the stuff was about to be sold. Police says it is most likely an organised crime thing.

I bet some runner somewhere is having a stern talking to one of his contacts!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...id=541&ncid=716

"Shouted down" is a bit of an exaggeration. One person said it was sad to lose an ethical conflict like forced cloning...

Fungal Risk Assessment Helps Clear Trade Hurdles
This could be the basis of runs between agricorps trying to discredit one another, or environmental groups trying to prove the Risk Assessment was faulty, and so on.

Well, someone did invoke the Crash as a cop out to bring back the ethical conflict, which is what turned me off about that thread.

BTW, courtesy of Bruce Sterling, Milan or Tehran?, a rather eye-opening look at fashions in the style captial of the world and the home of Shiite Islamic fundementalism. Guess which pictures are from either city, and most likely, you'll be wrong.

Some more totally freaky news from the world of today:

In a secret Paris cavern, the real underground cinema

ooohh... you're on the wrong forum with that one! Head over to white wolf...

Holy fuck. Those murders? In Jenner? That's like, 20 miles from where I grew up.
Yeah, yeah, you say?
There's like... MAYBE 4000 people in a 40-mile radius around Sea Ranch.

I always said it was a good place for killing folks...

Wierdest thing about it? Tick-Tick and Orient can vouch for me - a couple of years ago at the gas station about 1/2 a mile from where they were killed, we saw a pair that looked EXACTLY like Tick-Tick and Atkinson, our long-running Shadowrun PCs.