So what were your characters doing before they became shadowrunners? I'm guessin most were ex corp-sec, ex-military, or climbed up through the gangs, but are there any who had mundane jobs or truly wierd jobs?

"I was on the fast-track to be the number one garbage collector in the city when one day..."

i had a rigger who was a courier for a ups- type company until he figured out that with some cyber he could be making a lot more money as a getaway driver...

Sam:

Highly trained military. Had a buddy shot which caused an explosion that took his arms off and broke most of his bones. Had his flare-goggles turn out to be defective and was blinded by magnesium flares. Was blown clear off the deck of a ship when they opened up with volleys from the main guns. Traumatized by clinging to a troll in the water. The troll was better looking then he was.

Left when it became obvious they were going to get him killed in accidents.

Got hired by a small corporation in the 'special operations' department. Been there ever since -- although now he's an executive

Ex-intelligence.

Ex-Federal law enforcement.

Ex-pro football player.

Ex-State Department worker - mainly personnel and asset protection in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security with a bit of a spell assigned to the Bureau of Intelligence and Research mostly as an analyst with the odd couple of field assignments.

Spetsnaz Operative, specialized in battlefield trauma surgury.

After he defected, held down a job as a dockworker at the Port of Tacoma for 2 years before he got into bounty hunting.

my current PC (pheonix shaman) Ex-MIT&T student. (he got booted for buring down a lab.)

Other PCs?

Azland freedom fighter
Ex-corp assasin
free lance assasin
model
Celtic warrior
Ex-chem proffesor
Celtic musician
vampire hunter
DJ (that is a bandersnach hehehe)

prolly forgetting others

Farmer
Sioux Wildcat
Circus
Saeder Krupp
Ganger
Collage Student
NSA (Amnesia)
Traveling Magic Show

Those are all the characters I made as Third Edition PCs (though I only used two and each once).

hmm. I have a thing for rebellious rich-kid PC's.

Raven: Former MIT&T graduate, went into the shadows because . . . well, because the things he wanted to do would get him arrested and tossed in a loony bin if he did them anywhere else.

Siren: Spoiled corp brat who stole a chunk of her parent's cash and ran when she realized she didn't want to be a corp brat anymore.

Fenris: Not spoiled, but did grow up rich. Went to a nice German private school, Awakened, and became a Loki shaman. Up to just before he got inducted into the shadows he was a founding member of a Loki-worshipping apocalypse cult bent on bringing about Ragnarok. He's a real fun guy.

Mr. Smirk: Ah, this one wasn't rich. But he was CAS special ops.

Wraith: Barrens squatter from childhood, got out when the opportunity arose, always looking back.

Julie: No past (BAD case of amnesia and corporate programming, poor girl)

Torson: ex-UCAS soldier (Yet he's amerind... I never got around to explaining that), got a little miffed when his marching orders took him over a cliff. Killed his commander and took off into the Seattle shadows.

Kit: Never had a 'real' job, left home too young.

There are others, but I can't think of them off the top of my head right now.

Wow, my characters seem so uninventive now.

One is a member of Knight Errant (because he hate hate HATES Lone Star) who runs on the side almost exclusively to make the Star look bad (although the supplemental income is nice, of course).

One is just an ork kid who grew up in the slums and survived the gang wars long enough to learn the skills he'd use to become a runner.

My favorite is a ghoul, though, who used to be part of an amateur group of magicians in New Orleans who dedicated themselves to exterminating the "monsters" of the Sixth World. They hunted ghouls mostly, although they would have challenged a vampire had they been able to find one (and would've been torn apart, I'm sure). This was before he got HMHVVed and lost his magic. He was a houngan of Legba with exactly 4 charisma, and when he got ghouled (during a trip to Seattle for some reason I haven't quite finalized yet, but I want to say involved research), his CHA dipped to 3 and he lost his connection with Legba. He doesn't want to go home, of course, without his magic and in the body of the enemy, so he's squatting in Seattle and using the few people he knows there to get him work until he can figure out what he's going to do....

Edited for clarity.

Ex police (TRG Australian SWAT and then foreign investigations division)

Ex security rigger for aztechnology until they decided to vivisect his daughter

Rich kid mage got as far as basic martial arts training.

Privet investigating mage made an enemy.

Edward

The most interesting char history I had was my conjuror, Prospero: he ran his own tiny security company in Seattle that operated in gray-area kind of stuff - summoning elementals to guard organized crime figures, warding mob-restaurants, banishing ghosts that threatened to lead the authorities to the wrong people, as well as more "normal" magical security stuff. When a bigger corp bought him out, he became a "consultant" (read: paper pusher and nuyen drain) for the company and started running because he'd realized how much money was in it (especially after he dropped the consultant gig). The company was how I justified starting him out with a million - he'd kept most of the proceeds from the sale for himself as part of his "severance package" as the CEO.

Lazarus/Revenant - Elven adept - A couple of different versions depending on chargen limitations. Stealth scout. Ex-UCAS Army.

Castle - Troll adept - Ganger with human otaku sister. Bows, polearm/shield.

Rob - Human rigger - Taxi Driver, inspired by Taxi (the French one, not the lousy Hollywood stuff)

My character, Sugarcane Joe (wakyambi), is a Houngan of Ghede. Prior to being thrust into the world of shadowrunning, he worked a sugarcane field in Trinidad. He did work in exchange for a place to live on the beach and access to the local mortuary. Nice setup.

He was raised as a small boy in Senegal Africa. His father shipped he and his brother off across the Atlantic when they were barely in their teens, to work in his uncle's sugarcane plant in Tobago. His uncle raised him and steeped him in voodoo lore.

Joe sends his mother 50% of whatever he makes shadowrunning, as he needs very little to live the life Ghede desires for him.

My decker used to be a security consultant for the megas, until he got caught double-dipping and selling client data on the side. The team's first run was saving his ass from the Azzies.

It's kind of an embarassingly good background for a 'runner. When we're on a run, odds are he helped design the target security.

I had sam that was member of a ninja clan in japan that was also pretty high up in Mistuhama but she got booted out when she refused to assassinate a member of a rival clan that she has a long term but incognito relationship with so she was transferred to the US as further punishment and she kind of extracted herself from the corp and her family and is now being hunted relentlessly.

I ram a game for two characters that I thought were great together.
One was a ninja magician adept silent way etc drek-cetera. The funny thing was that he was kicked out of his clan for screwing up to much.
Second is a hermetic named Fizban (yep, throws lots of fireballs). An ex -corp mage that "saw the light".

They had a great first run together. Lo Wang (ninja-man, does wear black pajamas somtimes, when he's not wearing form fitting w/ ruthenium) was pretty good 'bout himself,' cause he had done a few runs before, and was kind of messing with good ol' Fizban. The main thing with the run was that it had low security, but they absolutely could NOT be spotted.

So what do they do when they get separated? Fizban calls Lo Wangs cell phone... just as Lo Wang is sneaking past a guard. From that day forward, his cell was always on vibrate.

I love new characters that are actually played as newbies!

I've got a Rigger whose father was apparently some sort of mechanic, or at least worked on vehicles; she herself seems to have at some point been a test driver/pilot, though it's not entirely clear yet.

~J

Nope, I'm just discovering her background along with the rest of the players. Evolutionary backstory.

~J

Oh, so your character knows, you just don't (as the player)? Like a player amnesiac flaw?

Exactly

~J

Ex-military? I dont' think I've ever made a single character who's ex-military.

Ex-Social Debutante
Ex-College student
Ex-Rich Brat Kid
Currently on a spiritual quest
Ex-Prostitute
Wandering monk
Shifter on a personal quest

Hmm... No, no ex-military.

Dammit, I thought I had an original one to post until I saw Nezumi's wandering monk. It pretty close to my gunslinger character.

Plane went down in Tibet, one infant survivor. Decided to go wandering around Kung-Fu style because he was so different (light-skinned, fair-haired elf), and ended up in the UCAS for a while, discovering a natural talent for firearms. Still embraces a watered-down version of the monks' philosophy combined with all the cowboy stuff.