[This session happened November 9th.]
The next run is going to be different from previous runs in that one of the main player characters will be the Mr. Johnson for a secondary team of runners. Therefore, we spent the session building discussing what the run would require and building new characters to cover that. We also decided each player would build a character different from their primary to keep people out of a gaming rut. This also provides a chance for players to learn new sections of the rules.
The source of the run is back in run number 5: A Dwarf in Need. The client (and eventual target), Sam, owned a collection of 65 vehicles, many of which were antiques or merely high-end prestige cars. Once The Fin saw them, her heart was set on owning several of them. Not making enough money as a shadowrunner to simply buy them, she decided to take a page from the Mr. Johnson Playbook and hire shadowrunners to steal them for her. To make the job pay for itself plus show a nice profit, she plans on having runners steal the entire collection, which she will sell off to buyers on the dark net or chop shops in Seattle able to handle the action.
This is not a run she wants the Pleiades Group associated with as it clashes with the group's growing reputation as quality shadowrunners for hire. If clients even thought that the Pleiades Group might use jobs to scout for potential valuables to steal like common criminals, they would think twice about hiring the Group. So plausible deniability requires a whole separate crew…
We are still sticking with the Shadowrun 5th Edition Core Rules and none of the additional books for character builds. We didn’t finish all the characters at the session, particularly names, but this is what we have on tap:
Ash – human male mage/rigger
Ash is a “car shaman” who follows the “spirit of the road”. He sacrificed two points of Essence/Magic for some alpha-grade augmentations: a Rating 1 Control Rig, a Rating 1 Synaptic Booster, and a Rating 2 Muscle Toner along with a standard Cat’s Eyes bioware upgrade. He bought back his lost two points of Magic and starts with 5 spells: Silence, Physical Mask, Improved Invisibility, Detect Law Enforcement Badge, and Detect Security System.
Ash is smuggler, running cargoes across the North Plains and the Rocky Mountains in a Rover Model 2072, crossing the borders of the UCAS, the Sioux Nation, the Salish-Shidhe Council, and the Seattle Metroplex. Ash was raised on the border between the UCAS and the Sioux Nation and speaks both English and Lakota as a native-speaker. Rumor has it that Ash once served in the military (stories vary on whether it was the UCAS or Sioux military) and received his augmentations before his magic manifested. His augmentations somewhat interfere with his magic and as a result his astral signature is weaker than normal and fades quickly (Astral Chameleon). One or the other also seems to have affected his mind and Ash only speaks of himself in the third person. He also has a Moderate addiction to Long Haul, a side effect of both his profession and his magical calling. [As the amount of backstory suggests, this is my character.]
Roadrunner – elf female rigger raised by orcs
Roadrunner (known as Tweety to her family only) is a straight up rigger with a serious need for speed, both on the road and in person.
Roadrunner’s parents were killed when she was very young in a spasm of anti-metahuman violence that claimed the lives of a number of metahuman types. As a result, she was raised by orcs and self-identifies as an orc (Orc Poser negative quality), to the extent she’s had tusks implanted. She is a rough and tumble person due to her upbringing and her need for speed is rooted here – punch the other person first and they have a painful bloody nose to deal with before they can hit back. Played by The Fin's player.
Krombopulos "Krom" Michael – orc male physical adept B&E specialist with a thing for elves
Krom (as nearly everyone calls him) specializes in bypassing security systems and will be necessary for reconnaissance and access to the site of the job. He’s an Elf Poser - don’t know why yet, but he and Roadrunner should get along like cats and dogs.
[His player is still developing Krombopulos's personality and back ground. Played by Sin’s player]
Limbsaw – human female street samurai
Limbsaw has Japanese/American ancestry. Her preferred weapons are a monofilament chainsaw and an Ares Alpha. Street gangs in her neighborhood have a "Limbsaw Identification" knowledge skill so they don't hassle the wrong woman and end up nick-named "Lefty". She works as a body disposal expert on the side and requires clients supply the plastic drop-cloths. Played by Void's player.
Seuo-ki – androgynous human swordperson
Seuo-ki is Korean and carries a sword that Seuo-ki is an expert with. Seuo-ki wanders the mean streets searching for Seuo-ki's next paycheck.
[Seuo-ki is played by Murdoc's player and will develop personality during play.]
Alfonz – human male Decker/Lawyer
Alfonz is either a lawyer who fell into decking or a decker who learned enough about the system to practice law. Either way, he’s for hire and will help with title transfers and stalling the probate court.
[Full details to be updated once I have them – played by Killroy’s player and GM for the run, which allows us to NPC decking and speed that way up]
The last two PCs are entirely unknown right now as the players couldn’t make the game session and are building their characters between sessions. I'll post them here once I have information on them.
Session 1 [Not Yet Written]
UPDATE: Added Seuo-ki and updated Limbsaw and Krombopulos Michael. 11/17.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Monday, November 9, 2015
Session Report – Valkyrie Ride – Session 4
[This session happened November 3rd. Things got complicated and panicky for a while.]
PCs
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Thursday, February 27, 2076 [The Action Continues]
Having just slain Jasper Spears, the dwarf target on the team’s hit list, Killroy beheaded the dwarf and took stills using the Image Link in his cyber eyes. Void retrieved her throwing knives while Murdoc continued to suppress the astral signature of the spell he had just cast. [As the only one who could clearly hear outside the silence bubble, Murdoc was the only one allowed to make a hearing Perception check to notice the group had been noticed. He failed to roll enough hits AND glitched, so what happened next was a bit of a surprise. It wasn’t the last for the night.]
Killroy rapidly left the room to get into position to attack the next office down the hall while Void started bagging the body for later transport. Killroy’s movement led to him stepping outside the silence bubble, just as the third target, Dexter Baldwin, stepped out of his office to check on Jasper. Dexter, upon seeing an blood-spattered obvious shadowrunner with a katana in the hallway, dropped his Defiance EX Shocker taser pistol and drew his Colt America L36 pistol, loaded with APDS rounds. Killroy did his best to cut off the hand holding the pistol to avoid triggering the building lockdown, but Dexter was equally determined to not lose that hand and kept it just out of Killroy’s reach [Dexter used Edge and rolled very well]. Dexter then tried to kill Killroy with the pistol, but Killroy stepped aside just enough to avoid being hit, but he could do nothing about the sound of the gunshot [Killroy used Edge to not get shot]. The gunshot alerted Murdoc to happenings in the hallway and he stepped out into the hallway and forward enough to bring Dexter and Killroy into the two-meter radius of the silence bubble, but the damage had been done. Security alarms went off, lights started flashing, and everyone heard the sound of the armored security gates rolling down into place on the exterior of the building. Leaving the building had just become much, much harder.
Killroy was able to hit and kill Dexter on his next attempt. With the alarm tripped, the need for silence was gone and Killroy sheathed his sword and pulled out his Ares Crusader machine pistol [named “Steve”]. Time was now critical and he still had two more targets to kill. Looking ahead with Astral Sight, Murdoc noticed an air elemental hovering over the door, but only said, “Heads up,” out loud.
Killroy charged forward to the edge of the alcove that held the doors to the last two outer offices. Listening, he heard individuals moving around in each office, preparing weapons. Knowing the occupant of the corner office was Awakened with Astral Sight [from Murdoc’s previous astral scouting trip], Killroy lobbed one of the last two NeuroStun IX gas grenades he had into the office. Immediately after, a young Chinese woman, Marie Chang, stepped into the doorway in front of Killroy [not the corner office, the one next to it], and fired a short burst from her Colt America L36, tagging Killroy. Killroy’s armor and augmentations absorbed most of the damage, but not all of it. [He took 2 Stun here, which was critical later.] Then the air elemental manifested out of the corner office door and attempted to engulf Killroy. Being warned by Murdoc kept Killroy from being surprised and engulfed [plus he spent Edge to improve his defense roll as being engulfed by an air elemental is no bueno].
Meanwhile, Void finished bagging the dwarf’s body and moved to the hallway to see what was going on. Prometheus switched from his Defiance EX Shocker to his SCK Model 100 submachine gun and continued to cover the door the HRT would have to come out of, knowing they would show up soon. Murdoc moved down to the corner where Killroy was so he could see into the offices to cast spells as needed.
At this point, several things happened almost at once. A grenade popped out of the corner office and landed at Killroy’s feet. Killroy identified it as a smoke grenade and kicked it into Marie Chang’s office while near simultaneously shooting a single shot from his machine pistol at the air elemental, disrupting it completely [another Edge point spent to good effect]. Murdoc cast a lightning bolt over Killroy’s shoulder to hit Marie, injuring her. Then Althea Leafhawk, the last of the five targets, bolted out of the corner office through the space the air elemental had previously occupied, ran past Killroy at the door and Murdoc at the corner, continuing down the connecting hallway. [To clarify, she ran down the other end of the “L” of corridors, not towards Prometheus and Void.]
Void immediately gave pursuit, her Physical Adept powers allowing her to reach the corner and move well past it in less than a second. Killroy stayed with his current target and attacked Marie, but missed. Murdoc recklessly cast lightning bolt twice at the same time [which seemed to improve his casting], seriously injuring Marie. Marie took this as a good time to flee, staggering past Killroy and Murdoc, back down the way they had come – right towards Prometheus. Prometheus fired his SCK Model 100 and, surprisingly, missed.
Marie fell down anyway.
While Prometheus was looking down the hallway at Killroy and Murdoc, confused as to what had just happened, Murdoc’s eyes rolled back into his head and he suddenly slumped to the floor, followed quickly by Killroy. The NeuroStun IX gas from Killroy’s gas grenade was filling that entire corner of the floor! [Killroy would have avoided falling unconscious from the gas for the first round, except Marie’s hit had done juuuust enough damage that he was KO’d by the gas. Tense faces all around the table at this point.]
Void chased Althea down, just as Althea slammed [and locked] the door to an executive office at the end of the hallway. Void paused to take in the situation and review an AR map of the floor. According to the map, Althea was trapped in that office with no way out, but Void was not one of the heavy-hitters of the group and was leery about pressing on by herself. Void could just hear the elf woman yelling at building security, apparently through a commlink. She clearly heard the words “shoot through the walls” being used and informed Prometheus over her commlink. Prometheus thanked her for the warning, taking the time to put a bullet into Marie as a coup de’grace before picking a more defensible spot to cover the door to the HRT ready room.
The HRT team made their presence known by shooting through the wall – the wall between their ready room and the executive office Althea was in. Void heard the overfire make spak-spak-spak noises as the bullets passed through the office walls just to her left. Deciding the hallway was way too exposed when facing assault rifles but unable to retreat due to the NeuroStun IX gas, she instead leapt up into the crawl space above the dropped ceiling tiles, neatly replacing the tile she pushed out of the way behind her so there was no sign of which way she went. Up in the crawl space, Void discovered that most of the walls on the floor did not extend all of the way up to the next floor. Taking advantage of this, she moved forward, her Light Body power allowing her to walk on the dropped ceiling without breaking through.
Once over the executive office, she heard Althea and the head of the HRT squad discussing tactics. Althea wanted the attackers dead, but thought that the team attacking might be the Pleiades Group, which suggested caution. [Hearing this, the players became excited that their characters were starting to get known.] The HRT sergeant decided they were safe enough for now and called for backup. Shortly after, Void heard him report to Althea that additional HRT squads would arrive in 2-3 minutes. He then ordered two of his troopers to hold the ready room door while the rest would hold the executive office. Void relayed all of this to Prometheus.
Prometheus, no longer forced to wait to shoot the HRT squad when they moved out, started shooting any cameras and security sensors he could see, partially to blind security and partially to convince the HRT squad that the attack was still active so they would stay put. Then he remembered he had his grapple gun and used it to fish Murdoc and Killroy from the gassed corner. Once out of the area of the gas, they both started to recover. They were awake but disoriented within 30 seconds [which is also when the gas dissipated].
After briefing Murdoc and Killroy as to the current situation, Prometheus took the last NeuroStun grenade down the hall and closer to Void so she could drop it into the executive office. She silently moved over to Prometheus and retrieved the grenade from him. She then quietly returned and dropped the grenade into the executive suite. It quickly knocked out Althea and the three HRT troops in the office. It took some time to reach the other two in the ready room and those troopers made panicked calls to building security before passing out. Void re-boosted her strength, lifted a drop-ceiling panel, and threw two knives into Althea, killing her. Void then took a picture of the dead elf with her commlink and replaced the panel. [NeuroStun is heavier than air, so once it stopped actively expanding she was relatively safe.]
Once again awake, if not fully recovered, Killroy took immediately to opening an escape route through an outer-wall conference room. The original plan had been to use his katana to break open one of the exterior windows so the team could rappel down to the ground and have Sin drive them away in a waiting car. With the security shutters down, that plan was no longer certain. He was able to break the glass with ease, but the metal shutters were another matter. His first two attempts were very promising, but then he ran out of gas and could not completely open an escape route. [He burned his last Edge on his first two attempts, removing the limits and make his 6’s explode, but was 2 points shy of breaking through. After that, none of his weapons could do enough damage to get past the armor of the armored shutters.]
The group discussed their options quickly, as they knew more HRT squads were on the way and they were starting to feel very trapped. The only option was to wait for the NeuroStun IX in with the HRT squad on this floor to dissipate, go in, take some of their assault rifles, and use those to blast the rest of the way through the armored shutters. This left a much narrowed window of escape before the rest of the HRT squads arrived, but it was better than doing nothing.
While waiting for the gas to dissipate, Void put Dexter and Marie into body bags while Killroy and Prometheus prepared. Allowing a few extra seconds for the gas to disperse, Killroy kicked open the door to the executive office. He and Prometheus entered the office and each grabbed an assault rifle from one of the slumbering troopers. Killroy immediately ran back to the conference room and used the underslung grenade launcher to blast through the remaining metal shutters. Prometheus took the time to drag the dead elf back with him to Void, who retrieved her knives from the body before bagging it.
With the metal shutters now breached, Killroy and Prometheus looked outside to see how bad the situation was. There were several news drones hovering in the area and an increasing number of Knight Errant patrol cars were accumulating at the base of the building. Rappelling down and simply driving away was no longer an option. Prometheus used his internal commlink to call Sin [His cyber-commlink has a high enough rating that the jammers on the building exterior did not completely block it] and tell him to come back with the Ares Venture – it was the only way they could escape now. Sin agreed and turned the smuggling craft around before going to maximum thrust. No longer needing to “fly casual”, he was able to reduce the estimated time back to the building to 3 minutes. The HRT teams would arrive on the 12th floor in 1 minute or less.
To buy the needed time for Sin to arrive, Killroy and Prometheus took the assault rifles, opened up the elevator doors for each of the three elevators [two regular and one freight], and launched grenades at the approaching elevators. They did not destroy the cars or kill the approaching HRT squads, but they did damage the cables and guides, triggering the automatic safety breaks and stopping the cars completely. Void used her locksmithing skills to break the locks on both stairwells in the locked position. The team then fell back to the conference room where the breach was and waited. [Much in-game sweating happened here.]
Sin arrived in the Ares Venture just before the HRT teams could make it to the floor the shadowrunners were on. The team loaded the 5 bodies and then themselves into the modified aircraft while the HRT squads were attempting to break down the stairwell doors. Knight Errant was able to get spotlights on the aircraft from the ground, brilliantly lighting up the sides so the message “Fuck the Po-Po,” painted tall on both sides, was readable for at least a mile around.
Once the team was on board, Sin immediately flew the craft away. To discourage media and police drones from following, Killroy and Prometheus used the stolen assault rifles to shoot several of the tailing drones out of the sky. The rest decided to veer off after four drones were destroyed this way. After another 5 minutes of nap-of-the-earth flying [to avoid being tracked by radar], the overburdened aircraft returned to the warehouse hangar and landed. The team disembarked with the bodies and quickly left the area in a “borrowed” van.
The kill shot photos of the targets were sent to The Fin so she could forward them to Numbers as proof the job was done. The Fin was at Pier 62, creating plausible deniability for herself and attempting to ignore the media stunt showing on the AR TV displays. Surprisingly (to The Fin anyway), Numbers was expecting her call and already knew the job was done. After arranging payment, submitting the [padded] expense report, and dispersal of funds to the group, The Fin paid more attention to what was on all the AR television displays. Apparently, an attack had happened at a Federated-Boeing office building and the attackers had escaped in an Ares Venture with the words “Fuck the Po-Po” clearly painted on the sides. Video of the aircraft was on every local station and starting to appear on some of the national stations.
The Fin ordered a bottle of a particularly strong alcohol and started drinking it.
End of session
[This session ran long, which made work the next morning somewhat painful, but we wrapped the run. I think we were starting to get a little punch-drunk at the end because having our stealth-based team escaping in a VTOL with “Fuck the Po-Po” painted on the sides where the police and the media could clearly see it was uproariously funny to the entire group.]
[This was a close thing for the PCs. The addition of the air elemental threw a wrench into the players’ plans, but not as expected. Instead of mixing it up with Killroy, it kept him from closing the door to the corner office before the gas grenade went off, with near disastrous effect on the attack team.]
[The aftermath of this attack will start a second corporate conflict in Seattle, this one between Federated-Boeing and Sikorsky. Sikorsky wanted some quiet payback for the killing of their Johnson at the Tacoma Ferry Terminal, what they got was a media spectacle. Sikorsky but won't back down from what happened as it just made the reputation of an exec or two inside the company and Federated-Boeing cannot shrug off the attack without a loss of reputation. Federated-Boeing HAS to strike back at Sikorsky, but it will take time as their entire local cadre of Johnsons just got very dead. They will have to bring in new people to re-establish their street connections and get that ball rolling again. Plus, they need to plug the holes in their security and check to see if there are any others beyond the ones used on this run. There will be some new job openings in Facilities Security very, very soon.]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
PCs
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Thursday, February 27, 2076 [The Action Continues]
Having just slain Jasper Spears, the dwarf target on the team’s hit list, Killroy beheaded the dwarf and took stills using the Image Link in his cyber eyes. Void retrieved her throwing knives while Murdoc continued to suppress the astral signature of the spell he had just cast. [As the only one who could clearly hear outside the silence bubble, Murdoc was the only one allowed to make a hearing Perception check to notice the group had been noticed. He failed to roll enough hits AND glitched, so what happened next was a bit of a surprise. It wasn’t the last for the night.]
Killroy rapidly left the room to get into position to attack the next office down the hall while Void started bagging the body for later transport. Killroy’s movement led to him stepping outside the silence bubble, just as the third target, Dexter Baldwin, stepped out of his office to check on Jasper. Dexter, upon seeing an blood-spattered obvious shadowrunner with a katana in the hallway, dropped his Defiance EX Shocker taser pistol and drew his Colt America L36 pistol, loaded with APDS rounds. Killroy did his best to cut off the hand holding the pistol to avoid triggering the building lockdown, but Dexter was equally determined to not lose that hand and kept it just out of Killroy’s reach [Dexter used Edge and rolled very well]. Dexter then tried to kill Killroy with the pistol, but Killroy stepped aside just enough to avoid being hit, but he could do nothing about the sound of the gunshot [Killroy used Edge to not get shot]. The gunshot alerted Murdoc to happenings in the hallway and he stepped out into the hallway and forward enough to bring Dexter and Killroy into the two-meter radius of the silence bubble, but the damage had been done. Security alarms went off, lights started flashing, and everyone heard the sound of the armored security gates rolling down into place on the exterior of the building. Leaving the building had just become much, much harder.
Killroy was able to hit and kill Dexter on his next attempt. With the alarm tripped, the need for silence was gone and Killroy sheathed his sword and pulled out his Ares Crusader machine pistol [named “Steve”]. Time was now critical and he still had two more targets to kill. Looking ahead with Astral Sight, Murdoc noticed an air elemental hovering over the door, but only said, “Heads up,” out loud.
Killroy charged forward to the edge of the alcove that held the doors to the last two outer offices. Listening, he heard individuals moving around in each office, preparing weapons. Knowing the occupant of the corner office was Awakened with Astral Sight [from Murdoc’s previous astral scouting trip], Killroy lobbed one of the last two NeuroStun IX gas grenades he had into the office. Immediately after, a young Chinese woman, Marie Chang, stepped into the doorway in front of Killroy [not the corner office, the one next to it], and fired a short burst from her Colt America L36, tagging Killroy. Killroy’s armor and augmentations absorbed most of the damage, but not all of it. [He took 2 Stun here, which was critical later.] Then the air elemental manifested out of the corner office door and attempted to engulf Killroy. Being warned by Murdoc kept Killroy from being surprised and engulfed [plus he spent Edge to improve his defense roll as being engulfed by an air elemental is no bueno].
Meanwhile, Void finished bagging the dwarf’s body and moved to the hallway to see what was going on. Prometheus switched from his Defiance EX Shocker to his SCK Model 100 submachine gun and continued to cover the door the HRT would have to come out of, knowing they would show up soon. Murdoc moved down to the corner where Killroy was so he could see into the offices to cast spells as needed.
At this point, several things happened almost at once. A grenade popped out of the corner office and landed at Killroy’s feet. Killroy identified it as a smoke grenade and kicked it into Marie Chang’s office while near simultaneously shooting a single shot from his machine pistol at the air elemental, disrupting it completely [another Edge point spent to good effect]. Murdoc cast a lightning bolt over Killroy’s shoulder to hit Marie, injuring her. Then Althea Leafhawk, the last of the five targets, bolted out of the corner office through the space the air elemental had previously occupied, ran past Killroy at the door and Murdoc at the corner, continuing down the connecting hallway. [To clarify, she ran down the other end of the “L” of corridors, not towards Prometheus and Void.]
Void immediately gave pursuit, her Physical Adept powers allowing her to reach the corner and move well past it in less than a second. Killroy stayed with his current target and attacked Marie, but missed. Murdoc recklessly cast lightning bolt twice at the same time [which seemed to improve his casting], seriously injuring Marie. Marie took this as a good time to flee, staggering past Killroy and Murdoc, back down the way they had come – right towards Prometheus. Prometheus fired his SCK Model 100 and, surprisingly, missed.
Marie fell down anyway.
While Prometheus was looking down the hallway at Killroy and Murdoc, confused as to what had just happened, Murdoc’s eyes rolled back into his head and he suddenly slumped to the floor, followed quickly by Killroy. The NeuroStun IX gas from Killroy’s gas grenade was filling that entire corner of the floor! [Killroy would have avoided falling unconscious from the gas for the first round, except Marie’s hit had done juuuust enough damage that he was KO’d by the gas. Tense faces all around the table at this point.]
Void chased Althea down, just as Althea slammed [and locked] the door to an executive office at the end of the hallway. Void paused to take in the situation and review an AR map of the floor. According to the map, Althea was trapped in that office with no way out, but Void was not one of the heavy-hitters of the group and was leery about pressing on by herself. Void could just hear the elf woman yelling at building security, apparently through a commlink. She clearly heard the words “shoot through the walls” being used and informed Prometheus over her commlink. Prometheus thanked her for the warning, taking the time to put a bullet into Marie as a coup de’grace before picking a more defensible spot to cover the door to the HRT ready room.
The HRT team made their presence known by shooting through the wall – the wall between their ready room and the executive office Althea was in. Void heard the overfire make spak-spak-spak noises as the bullets passed through the office walls just to her left. Deciding the hallway was way too exposed when facing assault rifles but unable to retreat due to the NeuroStun IX gas, she instead leapt up into the crawl space above the dropped ceiling tiles, neatly replacing the tile she pushed out of the way behind her so there was no sign of which way she went. Up in the crawl space, Void discovered that most of the walls on the floor did not extend all of the way up to the next floor. Taking advantage of this, she moved forward, her Light Body power allowing her to walk on the dropped ceiling without breaking through.
Once over the executive office, she heard Althea and the head of the HRT squad discussing tactics. Althea wanted the attackers dead, but thought that the team attacking might be the Pleiades Group, which suggested caution. [Hearing this, the players became excited that their characters were starting to get known.] The HRT sergeant decided they were safe enough for now and called for backup. Shortly after, Void heard him report to Althea that additional HRT squads would arrive in 2-3 minutes. He then ordered two of his troopers to hold the ready room door while the rest would hold the executive office. Void relayed all of this to Prometheus.
Prometheus, no longer forced to wait to shoot the HRT squad when they moved out, started shooting any cameras and security sensors he could see, partially to blind security and partially to convince the HRT squad that the attack was still active so they would stay put. Then he remembered he had his grapple gun and used it to fish Murdoc and Killroy from the gassed corner. Once out of the area of the gas, they both started to recover. They were awake but disoriented within 30 seconds [which is also when the gas dissipated].
After briefing Murdoc and Killroy as to the current situation, Prometheus took the last NeuroStun grenade down the hall and closer to Void so she could drop it into the executive office. She silently moved over to Prometheus and retrieved the grenade from him. She then quietly returned and dropped the grenade into the executive suite. It quickly knocked out Althea and the three HRT troops in the office. It took some time to reach the other two in the ready room and those troopers made panicked calls to building security before passing out. Void re-boosted her strength, lifted a drop-ceiling panel, and threw two knives into Althea, killing her. Void then took a picture of the dead elf with her commlink and replaced the panel. [NeuroStun is heavier than air, so once it stopped actively expanding she was relatively safe.]
Once again awake, if not fully recovered, Killroy took immediately to opening an escape route through an outer-wall conference room. The original plan had been to use his katana to break open one of the exterior windows so the team could rappel down to the ground and have Sin drive them away in a waiting car. With the security shutters down, that plan was no longer certain. He was able to break the glass with ease, but the metal shutters were another matter. His first two attempts were very promising, but then he ran out of gas and could not completely open an escape route. [He burned his last Edge on his first two attempts, removing the limits and make his 6’s explode, but was 2 points shy of breaking through. After that, none of his weapons could do enough damage to get past the armor of the armored shutters.]
The group discussed their options quickly, as they knew more HRT squads were on the way and they were starting to feel very trapped. The only option was to wait for the NeuroStun IX in with the HRT squad on this floor to dissipate, go in, take some of their assault rifles, and use those to blast the rest of the way through the armored shutters. This left a much narrowed window of escape before the rest of the HRT squads arrived, but it was better than doing nothing.
While waiting for the gas to dissipate, Void put Dexter and Marie into body bags while Killroy and Prometheus prepared. Allowing a few extra seconds for the gas to disperse, Killroy kicked open the door to the executive office. He and Prometheus entered the office and each grabbed an assault rifle from one of the slumbering troopers. Killroy immediately ran back to the conference room and used the underslung grenade launcher to blast through the remaining metal shutters. Prometheus took the time to drag the dead elf back with him to Void, who retrieved her knives from the body before bagging it.
With the metal shutters now breached, Killroy and Prometheus looked outside to see how bad the situation was. There were several news drones hovering in the area and an increasing number of Knight Errant patrol cars were accumulating at the base of the building. Rappelling down and simply driving away was no longer an option. Prometheus used his internal commlink to call Sin [His cyber-commlink has a high enough rating that the jammers on the building exterior did not completely block it] and tell him to come back with the Ares Venture – it was the only way they could escape now. Sin agreed and turned the smuggling craft around before going to maximum thrust. No longer needing to “fly casual”, he was able to reduce the estimated time back to the building to 3 minutes. The HRT teams would arrive on the 12th floor in 1 minute or less.
To buy the needed time for Sin to arrive, Killroy and Prometheus took the assault rifles, opened up the elevator doors for each of the three elevators [two regular and one freight], and launched grenades at the approaching elevators. They did not destroy the cars or kill the approaching HRT squads, but they did damage the cables and guides, triggering the automatic safety breaks and stopping the cars completely. Void used her locksmithing skills to break the locks on both stairwells in the locked position. The team then fell back to the conference room where the breach was and waited. [Much in-game sweating happened here.]
Sin arrived in the Ares Venture just before the HRT teams could make it to the floor the shadowrunners were on. The team loaded the 5 bodies and then themselves into the modified aircraft while the HRT squads were attempting to break down the stairwell doors. Knight Errant was able to get spotlights on the aircraft from the ground, brilliantly lighting up the sides so the message “Fuck the Po-Po,” painted tall on both sides, was readable for at least a mile around.
Once the team was on board, Sin immediately flew the craft away. To discourage media and police drones from following, Killroy and Prometheus used the stolen assault rifles to shoot several of the tailing drones out of the sky. The rest decided to veer off after four drones were destroyed this way. After another 5 minutes of nap-of-the-earth flying [to avoid being tracked by radar], the overburdened aircraft returned to the warehouse hangar and landed. The team disembarked with the bodies and quickly left the area in a “borrowed” van.
The kill shot photos of the targets were sent to The Fin so she could forward them to Numbers as proof the job was done. The Fin was at Pier 62, creating plausible deniability for herself and attempting to ignore the media stunt showing on the AR TV displays. Surprisingly (to The Fin anyway), Numbers was expecting her call and already knew the job was done. After arranging payment, submitting the [padded] expense report, and dispersal of funds to the group, The Fin paid more attention to what was on all the AR television displays. Apparently, an attack had happened at a Federated-Boeing office building and the attackers had escaped in an Ares Venture with the words “Fuck the Po-Po” clearly painted on the sides. Video of the aircraft was on every local station and starting to appear on some of the national stations.
The Fin ordered a bottle of a particularly strong alcohol and started drinking it.
End of session
[This session ran long, which made work the next morning somewhat painful, but we wrapped the run. I think we were starting to get a little punch-drunk at the end because having our stealth-based team escaping in a VTOL with “Fuck the Po-Po” painted on the sides where the police and the media could clearly see it was uproariously funny to the entire group.]
[This was a close thing for the PCs. The addition of the air elemental threw a wrench into the players’ plans, but not as expected. Instead of mixing it up with Killroy, it kept him from closing the door to the corner office before the gas grenade went off, with near disastrous effect on the attack team.]
[The aftermath of this attack will start a second corporate conflict in Seattle, this one between Federated-Boeing and Sikorsky. Sikorsky wanted some quiet payback for the killing of their Johnson at the Tacoma Ferry Terminal, what they got was a media spectacle. Sikorsky but won't back down from what happened as it just made the reputation of an exec or two inside the company and Federated-Boeing cannot shrug off the attack without a loss of reputation. Federated-Boeing HAS to strike back at Sikorsky, but it will take time as their entire local cadre of Johnsons just got very dead. They will have to bring in new people to re-establish their street connections and get that ball rolling again. Plus, they need to plug the holes in their security and check to see if there are any others beyond the ones used on this run. There will be some new job openings in Facilities Security very, very soon.]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Monday, November 2, 2015
Shadowrun Report – Valkyrie Ride – Session 3
[This session happened October 26th. NOTE: At some point this run (I can’t remember exactly which session) Murdoc cast a quickened Improve Reaction spell upon himself at Force 3, so he will be unusually high in the initiative order, let alone for a Mage.]
PCs
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Thursday, February 27, 2076
As part of last minute preparations, Sin contacted Kaylee and asked if she could arrange a rigged 6-person vehicle for him by 7:00 PM today. Kaylee asked how long would he need it and would he be returning it, to which Sin replied “3-4 hours” and “Yes”. Kaylee told him it would cost 3000¥, up front, but she would have a vehicle available. Sin transferred the money and Kaylee told him she’d call with the location and access codes when the vehicle was ready.
The Fin, meanwhile, was branching out into creative bookkeeping. She intended to leave as little of the expense money on the table after the run and was putting together inflated invoices for the equipment the Group purchased for this run. It occurred to her that Bookie had not mentioned paying coldpulse for the data she helped him acquire, so The Fin asked him what he’d paid coldpulse. Bookie was confused and said “nothing” – he’d just asked for her help. The Fin asked again and again Bookie said “nothing”. When The Fin asked a third time, it finally occurred to Bookie she was asking him to name an amount she could put on the expense budget, so he said “5000¥”. The Fin adjusted that number upwards for a nice profit margin and added it to the expense report for reimbursement by Mr. Johnson. Bookie promptly sent coldpulse 5000¥ and a message that there was no additional work for her, but the introduction to the datahaven was worthwhile.
3:00 PM
Bookie arrived at the Federated-Boeing building in a cleaning crew jumpsuit and entered using the cleaning crew smart card. He was questioned by the security guard about being late, but told the guard he’d been called in on his day off to clean “a shitstorm” from one of the restrooms. The guard waved him through and wished him luck. Bookie then ducked into a restroom to shuck the cleaning crew jumpsuit, packing it away into a satchel (which also contained a spray can of fecal odor), and took a hit of Psyche. He then took the elevator up to the third floor.
The third floor was almost entirely one large cube farm. Moving like he belonged there [3 hits on 5 dice for Etiquette], Bookie walked the sparsely occupied cubes until he found an empty one that was isolated from any of the occupied cubes. He then pulled out his cyberdeck and connected directly into the cubes network interface. The interface was dead. Sigh. [Modern corporations disable network connections in unused offices and cubes to avoid this exact scenario and I see no reason for corporations in 2076 to have stopped the practice.]
Bookie left that cube and located an empty cube with an occupied adjacent cube. This was a little less secure physically, but he could tap into the live access point of the adjacent cube. Opening the rear kickplate of the cube, Bookie improvised a connection to the live access point for the adjacent cube without disrupting the signal [5 hits on his Hardware check]. The added benefit of this setup was that network security would identify his access point as belonging to the wageslave in the adjacent cube, not an unauthorized access from an empty cube. [Turns out, this was important.] He then accessed the local host directly.
The host interior was designed to look like an airport. The terminal area was the general access portion of the host. Near that were hangars that represented different data repositories. Across the “airfield” was a second set of hangar constructs behind a fence. These has a skunk icon on them, which Bookie recalled reading was the sign for the BR@T Skunkworks, the top secret projects the corporation was working on. He immediately headed over there.
Getting into the Skunkworks area was surprisingly easy for Bookie, as was accessing the first hangar he came to. The interior looked like an aircraft manufacturing plant with schematics of experimental planes hanging from the assembly line. Not certain what he was looking at [other than paydata], Bookie carefully examined the first prototype schematic for a data bomb before attempting to copy the data. [He rolled terribly.] This is when things started going against him.
Hidden in the data was indeed a data bomb, which detonated and triggered an alarm when Bookie attempted to copy the file. The biofeedback from detonation nearly knocked Bookie unconscious. As a Patrol IC rezzed up, Bookie quickly changed his icon to look like that of the wageslave whose access he was piggybacking. The Patrol IC immediately located him and alerted the host. Bookie took the moment to copy the (now unprotected) datafile, knowing the Patrol IC itself could not hurt him. Then the host rezzed up a Tar Baby IC.
Bookie ran.
Fleeing to the access point, Bookie had planned to copy the datafile to the wageslave’s equipment to further incriminate him or her, but he was unable to hide from the pursuing Patrol IC and was forced to jack out while still in VR. He was able to avoid passing out from the dumpshock, but was still seriously disoriented by the dumpshock and suffering the effects of the databomb. Additionally, he could hear the corporate employee’s in the cube farm starting to respond to the data alarms.
Wiping the blood from his nose, Bookie staggered to the restroom. He could tell a few people noticed him, but no one attempted to stop him. Inside the restroom he splashed water on his face to clean up and try to regain some focus. He remembered that the door to the Electrical room was across the hallway from the restroom and the service elevator was in there. He thought he might be able to escape that way, but he had to move quickly.
Taking some deep breathes to steady himself, he exited the restroom and stepped to the Electrical room door. Using the cleaning crew smart card, Bookie was able to enter the room, but the card got caught in the reader as he was trying to close the door and snapped in two [the effect of a glitch on the Etiquette roll to look calm]. With nothing to do for it, Bookie pulled out the cleaning crew jump suit and summoned the freight elevator.
While riding down in the elevator, Bookie liberally sprayed himself with the fecal odor spray as part of his cover story. On the ground floor, security was alert, but the odor wafting from Bookie both backed his story and kept anyone from wanting to stand near him long enough to question him in detail. He was waved out of the building along with his smell.
5:00 PM
Sin, Void, Killroy, Murdoc, and Prometheus arrived at the address Kaylee supplied for the Ares Venture. The location was an old warehouse with a retractable roof. Inside was the aircraft. It was obviously a smuggler’s craft – it was stripped down for maximum cargo weight and painted flat black with “Fuck the Po-Po” in white on both sides. It was immediately obvious why Kaylee insisted the craft not be flown while the sun was up – Knight Errant being likely to take a dim view of the message painted on it. Sin started a pre-flight walk around, taking his time about it due to the modified nature of the aircraft. The rest of the group checked the parachutes and then settled in to wait.
7:00 PM
Sin received a phone call from Kaylee, providing the location and access codes to an old Renault-Fiat Grand Caravan [a minivan]. It was configured as a service vehicle, so there were no side windows behind the front seats, which met Sin’s needs perfectly. He drove it to a family-style restaurant near where the run was going to happen and parked it for later use.
7:30 PM
Void, Killroy, Murdoc, and Prometheus loaded into the Ares Venture, ready to go. Sin retracted the roof, climbed into his GMC Bulldog, and remotely piloted the Venture up and out of the warehouse. The aircraft mostly disappeared in the overcast sky, only the thrusters giving it away.
8:00 PM
“Flying casually”, Sin placed the Ares Venture 610 meters [a little over 2000 ft] above the roof of the Federated-Boeing building. With a tight window to avoid looking suspicious, Void, Killroy, Murdoc, and Prometheus promptly jumped out of the craft, Murdoc parachuting in tandem with Void. With surprisingly little trouble [due to great rolls and the liberal use of Edge by Killroy and Prometheus], they all landed on the roof of the southern stairwell and gathered up their parachutes before any motion detectors were tripped.
While the others applied catalyst sticks to the stealth parachutes, Void tried to spoof the video camera watching the door to the stairs. After three minutes of trying, she admitted defeat. Killroy suggested he just cut through the roof with his katana. To avoid unnecessary noise, Murdoc cast his silence spell [at Force 2 to keep the area of effect to a manageable two-meter radius]. Killroy then cut through the roof and (after Void checked for any additional security in the stairwell) the group dropped into the stairs.
8:20 PM
Having quietly descended 8 floors, Killroy opened the door to the 12th floor. He heard some talking, possibly telephone conversations, in the direction of their targets. The elevator lobby was empty and the door to the HRT team waiting area was closed. He saw the door to the first target office was partially open. Killroy stepped back inside the silence globe Murdoc was maintaining and reported what he had seen.
The team moved out, Killroy and Void in the lead, followed by Murdoc, with Prometheus behind, watching the rear. Killroy and Void got into position first. Listening to the woman’s telephone conversation, Killroy realized he’d heard that kind of talk before – she was a Johnson! He filed that away for later. Murdoc then moved into place just close enough that the office door was now in the silence globe.
Killroy rushed into the room, katana drawn. Sitting at the desk, facing away from the door was Lakeisha Erickson, who had just put her call on hold. She was just turning back to face her desk when Killroy attacked, killing her in one blow. Void was ready to assist in the kill, but instead unrolled a body bag and started putting the suddenly dead woman into it. She did nothing to clean up the spreading pool of blood.
Killroy immediately dashed out of the office to the door of the next one, signaling for Murdoc to follow. Murdoc attempted to hop the receptionist’s desk instead of walking around it, but it took two tries to do so. While Murdoc was attempting to get into position, Killroy listened to the next target’s conversation. The male in this office also seemed to be a Johnson. Murdoc finally moved into position, Killroy kicked the partially opened door the rest of the way open, and attacked the male in the office, Jasper Spears.
The dwarf, although surprised and injured, was able to draw his Defiance EX Shocker and shoot at Killroy, but missed widely. Realizing the dwarf was not dead, Murdoc stepped forward to get sight of him and cast a stun bolt on Jasper. Void, finished bagging the first dead body, rapidly moved to the second office, boosting her strength before throwing a knife into Jasper. Killroy followed with a second katana attack, which the dwarf mostly shrugged due to his armor and augmentations, allowing Void to get the fatal blow in with a second thrown blade. In the interim, Murdoc suppressed the astral signature of his spell to reduce the amount of evidence left behind.
End of session
[Matrix running takes more time than I planned, every time. As a result, we had to end the session mid-run. I need to put together a cheat sheet for data bombs that walks through the process of setting them, looking for them, disarming them, and them detonating and how that is handled. It took way too much time for me to locate the correct rolls, extending the time it took to do Bookie’s data run.]
[Next session will be the end of this run. No, really, it will be. Probably.]
Session 1
Session 2
Session 4
Monday, October 26, 2015
Shadowrun Report – Valkyrie Ride – Session 2
[This session happened October 19th. This session was mostly gathering final information and planning this session, but we ended ready to start the actual run next week.]
PCs
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Tuesday, February 25, 2076
Watching the Federated-Boeing building through his Fly-Spy drones, Sin watched two HRT teams exit the building and start actively sweeping the area for drones, 10-15 minutes after Murdoc’s astral investigations. He watched as they search for, located, and eliminated several other drones, but they never came close to his own, well-hidden drones.
Back at the Pleiades Group office, the team decided that Prometheus would infiltrate the building the next day using the valid housekeeping ID Bookie had purchased. It was an infiltration method he had used before and he would raise the least amount of suspicion. Due to the building jammers, Prometheus would have to store the data on his person for later review by the others. There was some danger to this if Prometheus was caught, but the odds of him being caught were small.
Near midnight, Sin watched the targets leave the building, each in their own chauffeured limousine. The cars arrived at the interior exit inside the parking garage shortly before each target left for the night. Combined with when the lights went off in the offices, this was reasonable confirmation that the targets worked in the identified offices. After the last one left, Sin went home.
Wednesday, February 26, 2076
Prometheus paid the cleaning team 100¥ each to let him tag along for the day, no questions asked. Prometheus pulled his weight cleaning and made no trouble, so the cleaning crew never turned him in. [Cleaning staff are notoriously underpaid, so the opportunity of making an extra day’s pay at no danger to them was an easy question to answer.]
After finishing his shift at 4:00 PM, Prometheus took public transportation home (where he changed clothes) and then hired a taxi to get to the Pleiades Group office. Back at the office he turned over his recordings and started answering questions as to what he saw while in the building. [I had one of the other players roll Prometheus’ Edge as a luck roll for reasons I can’t explain until after the run is over, but I will then. He rolled OK, so nothing bad happened.]
After that, the plan was put together [I’m compressing a lot of discussion here]. The best option appeared to be an air insertion onto the roof for the wetwork team, while Bookie would use the valid badge to walk in on the ground floor for a data grab, looking for juicy paydata. Bookie felt he’d have a better chance to sleaze around inside the host by accessing it directly.
Sin contacted Kaylee, asking for rigged air transport for 4 passengers and stealth parachutes for the same [Killroy, Void, Murdoc, and Prometheus, while Sin would pilot remotely]. She asked if he needed to buy it or just borrow-and-return it and Sin confirmed he just wanted to borrow it. Kaylee called back later, confirming she had located an Ares Venture VTOL that Sin could access at 5:00 PM on the 27th, but he couldn’t launch until after sunset and had to be back before sunrise. Sin agreed to those terms and they worked out the details on picking up the vectored-thrust aircraft. Sin noticed that Kaylee never stated whether there was a price attached and expected to owe someone a significant favor after the run.
With the vehicle secured, the team finalized the plan (all times in the PM):
3:00 – Bookie will enter the building using the cleaning crew ID. He will locate an unused cube on the 3rd floor (there are many) and access the system, looking for paydata.
4:30 – After the security team shift change, Bookie will leave the building.
5:00 – The insertion team picks up the Ares Venture. Sin checks it over before use.
5:51 – The sun sets.
7:30 – The team takes off.
8:00 – The team arrives 2000 ft over the building (the building, not the ground) and parachute to the building. Then:
If things go sideways, the team will improvise. What could possibly go wrong?
End of session
[There was repeated discussion about just mounting a missile launcher on the VTOL and shooting the targets from outside, but the lack of proof of death photos repeatedly nixed that plan. It was agreed that the look of surprise on the targets' faces would not count.]
[As the GM, I took no part in the planning, other than to answer questions about what was and was not possible and what the PCs knew. Prometheus’ infiltration was done off-stage and I had him make some general statements and then answer specific questions.]
[I’ll have a lot more to say about the plan after next session – I don’t want to tip my hand yet. I do have the NPCs statted out and the background of what’s really going on. I’ll share that after next session as well.]
Session 1
Session 3
PCs
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Tuesday, February 25, 2076
Watching the Federated-Boeing building through his Fly-Spy drones, Sin watched two HRT teams exit the building and start actively sweeping the area for drones, 10-15 minutes after Murdoc’s astral investigations. He watched as they search for, located, and eliminated several other drones, but they never came close to his own, well-hidden drones.
Back at the Pleiades Group office, the team decided that Prometheus would infiltrate the building the next day using the valid housekeeping ID Bookie had purchased. It was an infiltration method he had used before and he would raise the least amount of suspicion. Due to the building jammers, Prometheus would have to store the data on his person for later review by the others. There was some danger to this if Prometheus was caught, but the odds of him being caught were small.
Near midnight, Sin watched the targets leave the building, each in their own chauffeured limousine. The cars arrived at the interior exit inside the parking garage shortly before each target left for the night. Combined with when the lights went off in the offices, this was reasonable confirmation that the targets worked in the identified offices. After the last one left, Sin went home.
Wednesday, February 26, 2076
Prometheus paid the cleaning team 100¥ each to let him tag along for the day, no questions asked. Prometheus pulled his weight cleaning and made no trouble, so the cleaning crew never turned him in. [Cleaning staff are notoriously underpaid, so the opportunity of making an extra day’s pay at no danger to them was an easy question to answer.]
After finishing his shift at 4:00 PM, Prometheus took public transportation home (where he changed clothes) and then hired a taxi to get to the Pleiades Group office. Back at the office he turned over his recordings and started answering questions as to what he saw while in the building. [I had one of the other players roll Prometheus’ Edge as a luck roll for reasons I can’t explain until after the run is over, but I will then. He rolled OK, so nothing bad happened.]
After that, the plan was put together [I’m compressing a lot of discussion here]. The best option appeared to be an air insertion onto the roof for the wetwork team, while Bookie would use the valid badge to walk in on the ground floor for a data grab, looking for juicy paydata. Bookie felt he’d have a better chance to sleaze around inside the host by accessing it directly.
Sin contacted Kaylee, asking for rigged air transport for 4 passengers and stealth parachutes for the same [Killroy, Void, Murdoc, and Prometheus, while Sin would pilot remotely]. She asked if he needed to buy it or just borrow-and-return it and Sin confirmed he just wanted to borrow it. Kaylee called back later, confirming she had located an Ares Venture VTOL that Sin could access at 5:00 PM on the 27th, but he couldn’t launch until after sunset and had to be back before sunrise. Sin agreed to those terms and they worked out the details on picking up the vectored-thrust aircraft. Sin noticed that Kaylee never stated whether there was a price attached and expected to owe someone a significant favor after the run.
With the vehicle secured, the team finalized the plan (all times in the PM):
3:00 – Bookie will enter the building using the cleaning crew ID. He will locate an unused cube on the 3rd floor (there are many) and access the system, looking for paydata.
4:30 – After the security team shift change, Bookie will leave the building.
5:00 – The insertion team picks up the Ares Venture. Sin checks it over before use.
5:51 – The sun sets.
7:30 – The team takes off.
8:00 – The team arrives 2000 ft over the building (the building, not the ground) and parachute to the building. Then:
- Land on stairwell roof.
- Use access code to enter stairs.
- Make way down to 12th floor.
- Murdoc casts silence (R2-3), probably on himself.
- The attack happens, preferably attacking targets one at a time.
- After targets are down (assuming alarm has not gone off), Killroy to use katana to cut open exterior window for deployment of rappel line.
- Rappel to ground level, leave in car Sin has waiting.
- Deliver proof of death and get paid.
If things go sideways, the team will improvise. What could possibly go wrong?
End of session
[There was repeated discussion about just mounting a missile launcher on the VTOL and shooting the targets from outside, but the lack of proof of death photos repeatedly nixed that plan. It was agreed that the look of surprise on the targets' faces would not count.]
[As the GM, I took no part in the planning, other than to answer questions about what was and was not possible and what the PCs knew. Prometheus’ infiltration was done off-stage and I had him make some general statements and then answer specific questions.]
[I’ll have a lot more to say about the plan after next session – I don’t want to tip my hand yet. I do have the NPCs statted out and the background of what’s really going on. I’ll share that after next session as well.]
Session 1
Session 3
Monday, October 19, 2015
Shadowrun Report – Valkyrie Ride – Session 1
[This session happened October 12th.]
Player Characters
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d Characters
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Tuesday, February 25, 2076
Shortly after 3:00 PM, Sin received a call from Kaylee, his mechanic/fixer contact. She started the conversation with the question, “Um, are you Pleiades?” Kaylee had word from another fixer that there was a job for Sin, but what the client seemed to really want was the Pleiades Group. [With the group’s average Street Cred of 5, word was getting around on the streets of a group of shadowrunners able to get any job done on the QT.] Sin and Kaylee talked back and forth and then Sin gave Kaylee The Fin’s contact number.
A little later, The Fin received a call from Kaylee and the two discussed what Kaylee knew about the potential job:
The Fin contacted the rest of the Pleiades Group, alerting them that she was going to a job meeting. She asked Void and Killroy to join her for the meeting in case she needed their expertise. Wanting to show off her new Saeder-Krupp Bentley Concordat, The Fin offered to pick them up on the way to the meeting. She drove very fast.
Just at 4:30 PM, the trio entered The Bawdy Lass and looked around for “a pretty orc woman dressed all fancy like.” They quickly found her sitting at a window table with a clear view of the front door.
After introductions, Numbers asked if they wanted anything to drink before getting down to details. The Fin accepted a glass of wine, but Void and Killroy politely declined. The job turned out to be slightly daunting:
The Fin attempted to negotiate for better pay, based on the job, but Numbers politely yet firmly shut her down – after more than 30 minutes of negotiation. [Both rolled very well on the Negotiations roll, but Numbers beat The Fin by 1 success. NEW HOUSE RULE: Negotiations last 5 minutes per common success between the parties. The time increment is flexible based on dramatic need.] Once negotiations concluded, Numbers passed The Fin a datachip and then The Fin and her companions left. The Fin contacted the rest of the Pleiades Group and told them to meet at the office soonest.
Just before 6:00 PM, the entire Group was assembled at the office in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood. The map provided was a fire escape plan map of the 12th floor of the office building at 3365 160th Avenue SE, in Bellevue, with annotations indicating which offices the targets should be in. Bookie quickly looked this address up on the matrix and discovered it was on the Federated-Boeing Bellevue campus. The entire building and all the buildings in the office park were owned by Federated-Boeing and the neighborhood was security-rated AA.
The data chip also included portraits of the targets, who were identified as belonging to the Special Resources HR Team. Their names, titles, and suspected augmentations were:
Sin sent one of his drones to scout the building just before the sun set. He discovered that all the glass was heavily tinted and he could not see inside. While waiting for the sun to set, he had the drone look at the roof of the 20-story office building. He noticed a few security cameras and that the doors had keypads, Void [who was watching the video feeds from the drone] identified the locks as high-grade maglocks with keypad access, noted there were video cameras covering most of the roof, and identified motion sensors also covering the same. However, Void also noticed some gaps: the motion sensors completely missed the roof of the stairwell (being mounted around its perimeter) and there appeared to be narrow gaps between the arcs of video coverage.
Bookie took this time to scout out the building’s Matrix security and access. He discovered that the outside of the building had active jammers on almost every floor. The ground floor had some public access and, snooping around, he found an access point for a host! It had the look of a fairly secure host, so he took his time attempting to sleaze his way in. After being rebuffed three times [and with an Overwatch Score of 33], Bookie decided to back off and jack out for a while. [The host had a high rating and I rolled well, repeatedly beating Bookie’s rolls by 1 or tying with him. Luckily for Bookie, the host’s ability to see him was much worse than its defenses.] He reported the high level of matrix security and suggested that he would have to be on-site to access the building’s systems.
Once the sun set, Sin attempted to peek in windows, particularly those supposed to be occupied by the Group’s targets. Unfortunately, all the windows had shades and most of them were drawn, especially those their targets were supposed to be in. The best Sin could do was verify the lights were on in those offices.
Taking a different tack, Sin sent over all of his fly-spies and set them up in hidden spots around the ground exits. His goal was to identify the targets and their manner of leaving work once their shifts were over. He found really good locations to hide the drones and then waited. [He rolled 7 successes to hide his drones.]
Meanwhile, Bookie had an inspiration on how to get either more data on the building or even access to the system: he’d go to a data haven and barter his administrative access to the Alaska Building host [gained during the Everybody Needs Somebody run] for what he needed. Now he didn’t know where any data havens were, so he contacted coldpulse [his dwarven hacker contact] to see if she knew where one was.
While dubious about Bookie’s ability to make the trade, coldpulse agreed to show him where to find a data haven she knew of. She sent him some grid coordinates and told him to meet her there. The coordinates were on the Emerald City Grid, but in a low traffic area relatively near the SEATAC airport. She held up a token at an apparently empty part of the grid, which shimmered and allowed her access to a hidden area. Bookie followed her through the shimmer and found himself in the vestibule of a custom host, surrounded by Patrol IC modified to look like some sort of old-time French Legionnaires or something – Bookie wasn’t exactly certain. Still holding up her token, coldpulse let the Patrol IC scan it before telling them Bookie was with her. They let her – and Bookie – pass, resuming their patrol of the vestibule area.
Bookie and coldpulse then walked into the next area of the host. Bookie discovered that the interior of the host was all in black and white and set up to look like a bar or lounge. Everyone in the place was dressed in period clothing from the early 20th century and there was a band playing ragtime music. Bookie and coldpulse changed the appearance of their icons to match the décor before coldpulse led Bookie around the seating area to a set of doors on the left side of the area, where a bouncer stood.
The bouncer questioned why they were there and coldpulse responded that Bookie had data to trade. The bounced looked questioningly at Bookie, but let the two of them through the door. The area beyond was an old-style casino with roulette wheels and baccarat tables. Sitting at a table by himself on a raised area was a human male playing a game of chess against himself. Bookie was led by coldpulse towards the man, who looked vaguely familiar to Bookie. [One Memory Check later…] Bookie suddenly realized why the whole place seemed familiar – he’d seen it before in an old 2D movie! He was in Rick’s Place! [He didn’t make the roll so well as to remember the place’s actual name.] Looking and sounding exactly like Humphrey Bogart, Rick asked what the two of them wanted. Bookie stated he had data he wanted to trade and Rick offered him a seat while coldpulse went to go play some roulette.
Bookie explained he was willing to supply administrative access to the corporate host of the Alaska Building. In exchange he was looking for the blue prints and security data for the office building at 3365 160th Avenue SE, in Belleview. Rick pulled out a small booklet from inside his dinner jacket and flipped through it before looking back at Bookie with raised eyebrows. “Administrative access to a minor building host in exchange for the security details on the Federated-Boeing Research and Technology Building? Well aren’t you special.” Negotiations commenced.
Bookie was able to negotiate for notated floorplans and security schematics for the ground floor, the roof, and the 12th floor, housekeeping access codes for the roof, and the locations of all six HRT teams in the building in exchange for the host access codes for the Alaska Building. [Bookie rolled well for him, Rick…not so much.] Rick made a separate offer of a single valid housekeeping badge that would grant access to the parking garage and the housekeeping entrance on the ground floor, valid until March 1st, for 5000¥. Bookie made that deal as well, arranging for delivery in one of his drop boxes.
When Bookie asked if there was anything Rick might want from inside the building, Rick replied, “If you pick up anything good, come see me. If you don’t, that’s OK too, just don’t let anyone know where you got the goods.” He then pulled a token out a drawer in the table top and handed it over to Bookie, it was a black pawn. “And that’ll let you in next time.” Bookie thanked Rick and left, picking up coldpulse on the way out. She asked if there was any work, clearly hinting she was available for a job. Bookie deferred, saying, “Not right now. Maybe later.” That seemed to satisfy coldpulse.
Once he jacked out, Bookie provided the data to the Group. Void was not enthusiastic about what data he was able to get, but accepted it as better than nothing. The roof schematics confirmed there was a blind spot on top of the stairwell and gaps between the security cameras. The actual access code to the keypad was OK, but Void was certain she could pick the lock faster than Bookie could type the code in.
The 12th floor schematics paid out better, as they included the location of motion sensors in the halls and where a HRT team was stationed on the floor [in an area marked “ELEC RM.” on Mr. Johnson’s map.] It also notated that the office suite on the opposite side of the building from their targets was the Legal department, which might be useful. The schematics also showed that there were metal shutters ready to drop down on the outside of the building if security shutdown was triggered.
The schematics for the 1st floor showed all the access points to the building, including the separate housekeeping access door and areas. As this floor was semi-public, security was tight only around the interface between public and secure areas. Talk immediately turned to Void or Prometheus infiltrating the building ahead of time to scout things out: Void because she was sneaky, Prometheus because he actually had janitorial services skills. [Handy for fitting in during building infiltrations.]
Finally, the data located HRT teams on the 2nd, 7th, 12th, 17th, and 20th floors, with a sixth team in ‘Basement 3”. There was no indication of how the HRT teams were armed or augmented. However, with the knowledge that they worked for the same corporation as the security team Sin (through the liberal use of Susan, his drone tank) had fought previously [back in Everybody Needs Somebody], they could get an idea by asking Svetlana, The Fin’s Vory contact who “processed” the bodies for the Group. The Fin made note to contact Svetlana shortly.
Murdoc decided now would be a good time to astrally project [for the first time] and check out the target building for magical defenses. He started by checking the building in general and discovered only certain areas on certain floors were warded, not the entire building. Locating the 12th floor, he entered it from the side furthest from the targets. In the Legal department he found one tired and cranky mundane person working away. A couple of filing cabinets were warded, but that was it. He pushed into the center foyer of the floor and perceived that the waiting area for the HRT team on the floor was warded.
Deciding to not poke that with a stick, Murdoc moved up on the targets. The first office was occupied by a mundane human woman with alpha-grade cybereyes and some sort of bioware in her throat. This lined up with Lakeisha Erikson. The person in the next office was difficult to read, but was clearly mundane. Murdoc had the same issue with the person in the third office, but didn’t care as long as they were mundane and not Awakened and had zero chance of noticing him. [He rolled very low Assensing checks for both of these people.]
Poking his head into the fourth office he found a human who was Awakened! He backpedaled quickly before he could be noticed. Murdoc then made a wide circle so as to approach the corner (and fifth) office from a different direction, through an empty office. Here he found an Awakened female elf with magic as strong as his own who, while boredly talking on a phone, was also astrally perceiving and noticed his avatar’s head poking through the wall. [Murdoc’s astral avatar is a goat-headed satyr and spotting an astral goat head sticking through your wall would catch your attention as well!]
Murdoc immediately fled the building, taking the time and effort to obscure where he was going in case of pursuit. Once he finally returned to his body, Murdoc reported what he had learned, downplaying the fact that he’d been spotted.
With the information provided by Murdoc, the rest of the team was able to assign office locations for Althea Leafhawk (office 5, in the corner) and Lakeisha Erickson (office 1). Marie Chang was most likely the person in office 4 and who was Awakened instead of having bioware [clearly the notes from Mr. Johnson botched that]. That left Dexter Baldwin and Jasper spears in offices 2 and 3 with no immediate way to determine which was which. How bad could it be?
End of session
[The goal of this run was to give Killroy a chance to shine in the thing he made his character to shine in: melee combat. This is a surprisingly difficult scenario to bring about as silenced firearms do so much better in most situations due to the higher damage ratings and the ability to cause damage at range. Hence the security system inhibiting the use of guns and the requirement for the hit to happen in the building. Otherwise some explosives attached to the undersides of vehicles would likely be the way the job would get done.]
[After this run, the other GM will be running for a bit so I can prep a Champions game to kick off in January. That said, the next Shadowrun run I run (is that enough “runs”?) will either be a long-term job where the PCs have a month or more to accomplish the job or another hectic “day in the life of” type run like Everybody Needs Somebody. The players have requested both types of runs. Maybe I’ll do both – set up one long-term run and then a cavalcade of smaller runs in and amongst the larger one. Hmm. I’ll have to talk it over with the other GM. ;) ]
Session 2
Player Characters
The Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegant
Sin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says it
Void – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easily
Killroy – male human street samurai, specializes in hand-to-hand combat (and apparently machineguns)
Bookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaser
Murdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos
NPC’d Characters
Prometheus – male human street samurai, handy with any firearm
Tuesday, February 25, 2076
Shortly after 3:00 PM, Sin received a call from Kaylee, his mechanic/fixer contact. She started the conversation with the question, “Um, are you Pleiades?” Kaylee had word from another fixer that there was a job for Sin, but what the client seemed to really want was the Pleiades Group. [With the group’s average Street Cred of 5, word was getting around on the streets of a group of shadowrunners able to get any job done on the QT.] Sin and Kaylee talked back and forth and then Sin gave Kaylee The Fin’s contact number.
A little later, The Fin received a call from Kaylee and the two discussed what Kaylee knew about the potential job:
- The client stated Sin had once helped out on a run and got shot for his troubles [Everybody Needs Somebody, Session 3]. The new run was against the people who shot Sin. Mr. Johnson wanted to know if Sin wanted payback and could he bring in the rest of the Pleiades Group?
- The run pays low six figures and involves wetwork.
The Fin contacted the rest of the Pleiades Group, alerting them that she was going to a job meeting. She asked Void and Killroy to join her for the meeting in case she needed their expertise. Wanting to show off her new Saeder-Krupp Bentley Concordat, The Fin offered to pick them up on the way to the meeting. She drove very fast.
Just at 4:30 PM, the trio entered The Bawdy Lass and looked around for “a pretty orc woman dressed all fancy like.” They quickly found her sitting at a window table with a clear view of the front door.
[Orc Female CEO, by Kaitlynn Peavler. Used without permission.]
After introductions, Numbers asked if they wanted anything to drink before getting down to details. The Fin accepted a glass of wine, but Void and Killroy politely declined. The job turned out to be slightly daunting:
- Mr. Johnson wanted a corporate working group eliminated – five individuals, zero chance of resuscitation.
- Pictures confirming deaths or no pay.
- The targets all work second shift [4:00 PM to Midnight] in the same office building and are part of an HR department.
- The building is high security with an experimental audio system that locks down the building if gunshots are detected.
- There are several HRT teams stationed in the building.
- The job needs to be done by Sunday, February 29th. [2076 is a leap year.]
- Mr. Johnson has a floor plan of their offices.
- Expenses of up to 35,000¥ will be reimbursed. Provide an invoice after the job is done.
- The job must be done inside the building. [This is a retcon for reasons described later.]
The Fin attempted to negotiate for better pay, based on the job, but Numbers politely yet firmly shut her down – after more than 30 minutes of negotiation. [Both rolled very well on the Negotiations roll, but Numbers beat The Fin by 1 success. NEW HOUSE RULE: Negotiations last 5 minutes per common success between the parties. The time increment is flexible based on dramatic need.] Once negotiations concluded, Numbers passed The Fin a datachip and then The Fin and her companions left. The Fin contacted the rest of the Pleiades Group and told them to meet at the office soonest.
Just before 6:00 PM, the entire Group was assembled at the office in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood. The map provided was a fire escape plan map of the 12th floor of the office building at 3365 160th Avenue SE, in Bellevue, with annotations indicating which offices the targets should be in. Bookie quickly looked this address up on the matrix and discovered it was on the Federated-Boeing Bellevue campus. The entire building and all the buildings in the office park were owned by Federated-Boeing and the neighborhood was security-rated AA.
The data chip also included portraits of the targets, who were identified as belonging to the Special Resources HR Team. Their names, titles, and suspected augmentations were:
- Althea Leafhawk – Group Supervisor (female elf) – possible physical adept
- Dexter Baldwin – Additions (male human) – sleep regulator, synaptic booster
- Jasper Spears – Interventions (male dwarf) – cybereyes, bone lacing (grade unknown)
- Marie Chang – Redemptions (female human) – None known, but bioware suspected
- Lakeisha Erikson – Polling (female human) – cybereyes, suprathyroid gland
Sin sent one of his drones to scout the building just before the sun set. He discovered that all the glass was heavily tinted and he could not see inside. While waiting for the sun to set, he had the drone look at the roof of the 20-story office building. He noticed a few security cameras and that the doors had keypads, Void [who was watching the video feeds from the drone] identified the locks as high-grade maglocks with keypad access, noted there were video cameras covering most of the roof, and identified motion sensors also covering the same. However, Void also noticed some gaps: the motion sensors completely missed the roof of the stairwell (being mounted around its perimeter) and there appeared to be narrow gaps between the arcs of video coverage.
Bookie took this time to scout out the building’s Matrix security and access. He discovered that the outside of the building had active jammers on almost every floor. The ground floor had some public access and, snooping around, he found an access point for a host! It had the look of a fairly secure host, so he took his time attempting to sleaze his way in. After being rebuffed three times [and with an Overwatch Score of 33], Bookie decided to back off and jack out for a while. [The host had a high rating and I rolled well, repeatedly beating Bookie’s rolls by 1 or tying with him. Luckily for Bookie, the host’s ability to see him was much worse than its defenses.] He reported the high level of matrix security and suggested that he would have to be on-site to access the building’s systems.
Once the sun set, Sin attempted to peek in windows, particularly those supposed to be occupied by the Group’s targets. Unfortunately, all the windows had shades and most of them were drawn, especially those their targets were supposed to be in. The best Sin could do was verify the lights were on in those offices.
Taking a different tack, Sin sent over all of his fly-spies and set them up in hidden spots around the ground exits. His goal was to identify the targets and their manner of leaving work once their shifts were over. He found really good locations to hide the drones and then waited. [He rolled 7 successes to hide his drones.]
Meanwhile, Bookie had an inspiration on how to get either more data on the building or even access to the system: he’d go to a data haven and barter his administrative access to the Alaska Building host [gained during the Everybody Needs Somebody run] for what he needed. Now he didn’t know where any data havens were, so he contacted coldpulse [his dwarven hacker contact] to see if she knew where one was.
While dubious about Bookie’s ability to make the trade, coldpulse agreed to show him where to find a data haven she knew of. She sent him some grid coordinates and told him to meet her there. The coordinates were on the Emerald City Grid, but in a low traffic area relatively near the SEATAC airport. She held up a token at an apparently empty part of the grid, which shimmered and allowed her access to a hidden area. Bookie followed her through the shimmer and found himself in the vestibule of a custom host, surrounded by Patrol IC modified to look like some sort of old-time French Legionnaires or something – Bookie wasn’t exactly certain. Still holding up her token, coldpulse let the Patrol IC scan it before telling them Bookie was with her. They let her – and Bookie – pass, resuming their patrol of the vestibule area.
Bookie and coldpulse then walked into the next area of the host. Bookie discovered that the interior of the host was all in black and white and set up to look like a bar or lounge. Everyone in the place was dressed in period clothing from the early 20th century and there was a band playing ragtime music. Bookie and coldpulse changed the appearance of their icons to match the décor before coldpulse led Bookie around the seating area to a set of doors on the left side of the area, where a bouncer stood.
The bouncer questioned why they were there and coldpulse responded that Bookie had data to trade. The bounced looked questioningly at Bookie, but let the two of them through the door. The area beyond was an old-style casino with roulette wheels and baccarat tables. Sitting at a table by himself on a raised area was a human male playing a game of chess against himself. Bookie was led by coldpulse towards the man, who looked vaguely familiar to Bookie. [One Memory Check later…] Bookie suddenly realized why the whole place seemed familiar – he’d seen it before in an old 2D movie! He was in Rick’s Place! [He didn’t make the roll so well as to remember the place’s actual name.] Looking and sounding exactly like Humphrey Bogart, Rick asked what the two of them wanted. Bookie stated he had data he wanted to trade and Rick offered him a seat while coldpulse went to go play some roulette.
Bookie explained he was willing to supply administrative access to the corporate host of the Alaska Building. In exchange he was looking for the blue prints and security data for the office building at 3365 160th Avenue SE, in Belleview. Rick pulled out a small booklet from inside his dinner jacket and flipped through it before looking back at Bookie with raised eyebrows. “Administrative access to a minor building host in exchange for the security details on the Federated-Boeing Research and Technology Building? Well aren’t you special.” Negotiations commenced.
Bookie was able to negotiate for notated floorplans and security schematics for the ground floor, the roof, and the 12th floor, housekeeping access codes for the roof, and the locations of all six HRT teams in the building in exchange for the host access codes for the Alaska Building. [Bookie rolled well for him, Rick…not so much.] Rick made a separate offer of a single valid housekeeping badge that would grant access to the parking garage and the housekeeping entrance on the ground floor, valid until March 1st, for 5000¥. Bookie made that deal as well, arranging for delivery in one of his drop boxes.
When Bookie asked if there was anything Rick might want from inside the building, Rick replied, “If you pick up anything good, come see me. If you don’t, that’s OK too, just don’t let anyone know where you got the goods.” He then pulled a token out a drawer in the table top and handed it over to Bookie, it was a black pawn. “And that’ll let you in next time.” Bookie thanked Rick and left, picking up coldpulse on the way out. She asked if there was any work, clearly hinting she was available for a job. Bookie deferred, saying, “Not right now. Maybe later.” That seemed to satisfy coldpulse.
Once he jacked out, Bookie provided the data to the Group. Void was not enthusiastic about what data he was able to get, but accepted it as better than nothing. The roof schematics confirmed there was a blind spot on top of the stairwell and gaps between the security cameras. The actual access code to the keypad was OK, but Void was certain she could pick the lock faster than Bookie could type the code in.
The 12th floor schematics paid out better, as they included the location of motion sensors in the halls and where a HRT team was stationed on the floor [in an area marked “ELEC RM.” on Mr. Johnson’s map.] It also notated that the office suite on the opposite side of the building from their targets was the Legal department, which might be useful. The schematics also showed that there were metal shutters ready to drop down on the outside of the building if security shutdown was triggered.
The schematics for the 1st floor showed all the access points to the building, including the separate housekeeping access door and areas. As this floor was semi-public, security was tight only around the interface between public and secure areas. Talk immediately turned to Void or Prometheus infiltrating the building ahead of time to scout things out: Void because she was sneaky, Prometheus because he actually had janitorial services skills. [Handy for fitting in during building infiltrations.]
Finally, the data located HRT teams on the 2nd, 7th, 12th, 17th, and 20th floors, with a sixth team in ‘Basement 3”. There was no indication of how the HRT teams were armed or augmented. However, with the knowledge that they worked for the same corporation as the security team Sin (through the liberal use of Susan, his drone tank) had fought previously [back in Everybody Needs Somebody], they could get an idea by asking Svetlana, The Fin’s Vory contact who “processed” the bodies for the Group. The Fin made note to contact Svetlana shortly.
Murdoc decided now would be a good time to astrally project [for the first time] and check out the target building for magical defenses. He started by checking the building in general and discovered only certain areas on certain floors were warded, not the entire building. Locating the 12th floor, he entered it from the side furthest from the targets. In the Legal department he found one tired and cranky mundane person working away. A couple of filing cabinets were warded, but that was it. He pushed into the center foyer of the floor and perceived that the waiting area for the HRT team on the floor was warded.
Deciding to not poke that with a stick, Murdoc moved up on the targets. The first office was occupied by a mundane human woman with alpha-grade cybereyes and some sort of bioware in her throat. This lined up with Lakeisha Erikson. The person in the next office was difficult to read, but was clearly mundane. Murdoc had the same issue with the person in the third office, but didn’t care as long as they were mundane and not Awakened and had zero chance of noticing him. [He rolled very low Assensing checks for both of these people.]
Poking his head into the fourth office he found a human who was Awakened! He backpedaled quickly before he could be noticed. Murdoc then made a wide circle so as to approach the corner (and fifth) office from a different direction, through an empty office. Here he found an Awakened female elf with magic as strong as his own who, while boredly talking on a phone, was also astrally perceiving and noticed his avatar’s head poking through the wall. [Murdoc’s astral avatar is a goat-headed satyr and spotting an astral goat head sticking through your wall would catch your attention as well!]
Murdoc immediately fled the building, taking the time and effort to obscure where he was going in case of pursuit. Once he finally returned to his body, Murdoc reported what he had learned, downplaying the fact that he’d been spotted.
With the information provided by Murdoc, the rest of the team was able to assign office locations for Althea Leafhawk (office 5, in the corner) and Lakeisha Erickson (office 1). Marie Chang was most likely the person in office 4 and who was Awakened instead of having bioware [clearly the notes from Mr. Johnson botched that]. That left Dexter Baldwin and Jasper spears in offices 2 and 3 with no immediate way to determine which was which. How bad could it be?
End of session
[The goal of this run was to give Killroy a chance to shine in the thing he made his character to shine in: melee combat. This is a surprisingly difficult scenario to bring about as silenced firearms do so much better in most situations due to the higher damage ratings and the ability to cause damage at range. Hence the security system inhibiting the use of guns and the requirement for the hit to happen in the building. Otherwise some explosives attached to the undersides of vehicles would likely be the way the job would get done.]
[After this run, the other GM will be running for a bit so I can prep a Champions game to kick off in January. That said, the next Shadowrun run I run (is that enough “runs”?) will either be a long-term job where the PCs have a month or more to accomplish the job or another hectic “day in the life of” type run like Everybody Needs Somebody. The players have requested both types of runs. Maybe I’ll do both – set up one long-term run and then a cavalcade of smaller runs in and amongst the larger one. Hmm. I’ll have to talk it over with the other GM. ;) ]
Session 2
Monday, October 12, 2015
Delay on Valkyrie Ride
UPDATED: Session 1 has been posted.
The next Shadowrun session report is delayed because we didn't play for reasons entirely my fault - I left the run notes on my laptop at work. That was September 28th. Last week two of the players were out of town and I ended up with a cold and an allergy attack piled on top of my head, so no game. I did spend the time getting the run (mostly) ready. It turns out complete NPCs take some time to put together. We will be playing tonight (October 12), so there will be a session report next week for Valkyrie Ride. [No, I will not explain the name before the run finishes.]
The run will be fairly simple and straight forward, but with the usual Shadowrun "here's the job, you figure out how to do it - oh, and hurry up if you want to get paid" complications. If it was easy, Mr. Johnson would do it himself, not hire some deniable assets who might get killed trying. You know how Mr. Johnson is.
Running this campaign has been a learning experience by design. Most of the group had not played Shadowrun before and those that had played previous editions. We've stuck with the Core Rules only as Shadowrun has lots of moving parts. I cheated once to pull in the succubus spirit in for one run (to great effect), but for the most part if it isn't in the Core Rules, it wasn't used. This has helped us come to grips with the game in manageable chunks.
This has also lead to some grey areas as there are gaps in the Core Rules that are supposed to be filled in by the splat books (Chrome Flesh, Data Trails, etc.). I've consulted with a fellow GM who has run SR5 for his own group, which has helped, but sometimes there is no good answer (for example, how much does IC cost if a player has access to a host and wants to install some?). It has also occasionally unearthed a noticeable difference between SR5 and previous editions (data bombs are much more dangerous from what I remember).
I've been very satisfied with SR5 overall. It limited the more comic book-y elements by adding in limits without removing the ability of player characters to do cool things. Each character archetype shines in its own environment and each is jonesing for a different resource.
At some point, we will be re-spec-ing characters, using all the splat books. I need to read through them to determine if there is anything I don't want to include and from what I hear, there is stuff in Data Trails I may not want to use (growing hosts from the Matrix like something organic? Really?). I think we are starting to get a good grasp on the Core Rules now, so I'm looking for a good story point to suggest a switch over to the other co-GM, but I'm not in a hurry.
The next Shadowrun session report is delayed because we didn't play for reasons entirely my fault - I left the run notes on my laptop at work. That was September 28th. Last week two of the players were out of town and I ended up with a cold and an allergy attack piled on top of my head, so no game. I did spend the time getting the run (mostly) ready. It turns out complete NPCs take some time to put together. We will be playing tonight (October 12), so there will be a session report next week for Valkyrie Ride. [No, I will not explain the name before the run finishes.]
The run will be fairly simple and straight forward, but with the usual Shadowrun "here's the job, you figure out how to do it - oh, and hurry up if you want to get paid" complications. If it was easy, Mr. Johnson would do it himself, not hire some deniable assets who might get killed trying. You know how Mr. Johnson is.
Running this campaign has been a learning experience by design. Most of the group had not played Shadowrun before and those that had played previous editions. We've stuck with the Core Rules only as Shadowrun has lots of moving parts. I cheated once to pull in the succubus spirit in for one run (to great effect), but for the most part if it isn't in the Core Rules, it wasn't used. This has helped us come to grips with the game in manageable chunks.
This has also lead to some grey areas as there are gaps in the Core Rules that are supposed to be filled in by the splat books (Chrome Flesh, Data Trails, etc.). I've consulted with a fellow GM who has run SR5 for his own group, which has helped, but sometimes there is no good answer (for example, how much does IC cost if a player has access to a host and wants to install some?). It has also occasionally unearthed a noticeable difference between SR5 and previous editions (data bombs are much more dangerous from what I remember).
I've been very satisfied with SR5 overall. It limited the more comic book-y elements by adding in limits without removing the ability of player characters to do cool things. Each character archetype shines in its own environment and each is jonesing for a different resource.
At some point, we will be re-spec-ing characters, using all the splat books. I need to read through them to determine if there is anything I don't want to include and from what I hear, there is stuff in Data Trails I may not want to use (growing hosts from the Matrix like something organic? Really?). I think we are starting to get a good grasp on the Core Rules now, so I'm looking for a good story point to suggest a switch over to the other co-GM, but I'm not in a hurry.
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