SR Bug hunt

[Joose]

Right you mother-werders, lets get this bug hunt run organised. I've got most of it ready to run now, just need to polish some things up a bit. So, who's joining in on this one?

Couple of things to bear in mind: I'm running this one extremely fluid (eww). I've plotted out what's going on in the background, who the major characters are, etc. What you guys do is entirely up to you. There wont be a "You get a call from Mr X" type set up or anything like that. Obviously, if you are flailing about aimlessly at any point, I will give you gentle prods. Just bear in mind that Insect Spirits are one of Shadowruns Big Bads, and shouldn't be taken lightly. Therefore, if you fuck up here, you may well die. Deus Ex Machina will not occur.

Still, that makes it more fun, right?

[Roman Totale]

Can I bring my face?

[Joose]

I'll leave that up to your team mates.

[Dog Pants]

Can you give us a quick reminder of what we've got to go on? It's been a while.

[HereComesPete]

Sign me up!

[Joose]

Can you give us a quick reminder of what we've got to go on? It's been a while.

Certainly can, but its not a right lot.

The fucked up looking body from the Doc Wagon clinic you hit was ID'd by Lelands buddy as being used as a host by an insect spirit. Which implies there is a hive somewhere nearby. This is backed up by the speed at which the Knight Errant Firewatch team turned up.

That's all you have picked up on so far.

Here's some general info that your characters would know about bugs though:

There's a bunch of different types, that roughly match up to real world insect equivalents. As in: Wasp Spirits like to fly about building nests high up and stinging people, Roach Spirits hide in dark dirty places, Ant Spirits are all industrious and like building underground nests.

Most insect spirits have a queen, and all of them need living metahuman hosts to summon new spirits, as they are all possession based.

Bug Spirits are sneaky fucks, and often hide in plain sight. For instance, the bug infestation that ended up fucking Chicago so badly was hiding under the guise of a charity organisation called the Universal Brotherhood, who were by all accounts nice doods who did a lot of good work. Behind the lovely lovely façade, however, they were taking their members and sticking nasty spirits in them, and using the lure of their good works to get more members/victims.

Being possessed by a bug is a nasty way to die. Think Aliens, only with you turning into the nasty critter rather than it bursting out your chest.

Not all bug possessed look like something from The Fly (although some do). Some of them look like normal people, though they may act odd. You *can* ID them in astral space, as they will have a nasty insect aura. A decent mage can hide that though, and some bug spirits are pretty decent mages.

Finally, just to give you an idea of how bad bugs can be and how seriously SR people take them, when it was discovered that Chicago was being over-run, it was nuked *and then* a whole bunch of FAB was released. The nasty magic and spirit eating kind.

[Dog Pants]

Okay, so a few things we need to work out:

1. Where these things are.
2. Who's going to pay us / owe us a nice favour for telling them
3. How to keep the information secure if they try to fuck us over (because that's what I'd do if a bunch of assholes who had info on this wanted paying for it)
4. How far we take it.

So:

1. Might be worth trying to find out where Jane Doe came from. Not much else in the way of leads. I'll be getting busy with my contacts, but I'm not sure they'll have much. Pete, don't you have a DW contact? Also, we could bung N-Zo some cash and ask him to get into DW and find something for us.

2. The big corps would be the end result. If they're going to drop an orbital firework on these boys then we could really do with making sure they've got the info they need. Course we don't work for free, and I'm not sure I want to be so high profile in conection with an insect spirit infestation. Maybe use a middle man like the Yak or Mr P. Bear in mind too that we could really do with having these things stopped anyway, just so we don't get turned into cockroaches ourselves. Oh, and finding out where they are also enables us to not be there when the nuke lands.

3. This is the thing about having a middle man. Someone we've a bit of rapport with isn't as likely to dick us over if they've got the clout to sell the info on at a bigger price. We don't have that luxury - a AAA Corp would (again, if I were them) haul us in and rape us until we told them everything we knew. Depends on the corp maybe, I might be able to go direct to Renraku. We can call their bluff by saying "Pay up and find out where they are, don't pay and you'll know they're somewhere we aren't", or use the fact we'd like Chicago to not be a hive as assurance that we'll be giving someone the info, and they can be the corp who takes the credit. Hell, we could use giving the info away for free to the other corps as a threat.

4. As far as this goes, presumably we take it as far as we can until it looks like we're going to become wasp-food. The more info we have the more money we can barter for. I don't have any plans to save the world myself.

[HereComesPete]

1 - Unfortunately not in terms of contacts, just a band around the wrist for the basic package and a rough idea of how their teams work.

2/3 - The big corps would probably just rape us, Pappa P seems to be well connected and owes us after the incident.

4 - figure we have to at least find the hive and have a quick look at its setup. Getting eaten on a do gooder mission is something Frank would be prepared to do, but I can see why others wouldn't chance it.

[Roman Totale]

Mr P. Bear

?

[Dog Pants]

Getting eaten on a do gooder mission is something Frank would be prepared to do, but I can see why others wouldn't chance it.

Well, from Al's point of view it's not a do-gooder mission, it's a speculative investment. With some element of self preservation if this is likely to lead to a big show-stopper. I've also no intention of carking it, greater good or not. It is speculative, so that's why I've no issue with N-Zo or anyone else opting out. Since common concensus is that this is my baby though, I'd say you either come on speculation and take your share at the end, or work for us on commission and get whatever we pay you for your work, as N-Zo agreed to.

So on that note I'm going to get in touch with N-Zo and see how much he wants paying to dig out where the stiff was found. Bonus for any juicy extras he finds.

[Joose]

Right, before we get too stuck in with what people are doing, two questions:

Exactly who is joining in here? I gather Al, Frank and Chopper are joining in, and I imagine Leland is. Anyone else?

Secondly, how do you guys want to run it, forumised or IRC? We could probably get through it in a few hours on IRC, maybe split over two sessions, but that could be harder to organise. Forumised is easier, but obviously takes a bit longer.

[deject]

Leland wants no part of this mission, as I mentioned previously. He's not going to participate in things that kill him in his nightmares. Unless there's a good reason why he should join, he's going to continue working off his gesture geasa instead.

[HereComesPete]

Secondly, how do you guys want to run it, forumised or IRC? We could probably get through it in a few hours on IRC, maybe split over two sessions, but that could be harder to organise. Forumised is easier, but obviously takes a bit longer.

At this present moment in time sitting down and concentrating on/in IRC would make me bleed through my eyes as I'm utterly under the cosh at work. I would prefer a slower pace on the forums but of course if everyone else says IRC I'll just have to get really drunk and join in.

[Grimmie]

Either for me, IRC helps things flow a little better with me being able to ask WTF to roll next, but forums are more sedate for dialogue.

Dunno how much talking we're gonna do though.

[Dog Pants]

Forum would be a lot better for me. Finding time for an IRC game at the moment would be a problem.

[Joose]

Well, as forum would be my preference too, lets go with that.

So, the roll call so far is:

Frank
Al
Chopper
Nik

Possibly N-Zo, depending on monies (which, by the way, is totally up to you guys to sort out)

Correct? If it is, I believe we may be ready to rawk.

[Dog Pants]

Sounds good to me. TSD seemed pretty clear about N-Zo - he'll contract out as he would with any other job, but he's not doing a freebie.

So on that note;

Right, we're going to scout out this bug situation. We could do with some starting info, so how much do you charge to pull the records on the stiff we stole? Pickup location most importantly, give us something to go on.

In theory Al would already know how much he should be paying, being an ex-Mr Johnson. Not sure what (if) I'd roll though.

[Roman Totale]

Jooseseses, did you get my PM after grimbash about Chopper's updated character sheet?

[Grimmie]

[Joose]

I thought we were waiting on TSD? Although actually, thinking about it, he is in a field, so probably is a bit lacking on the internets front.

I can autopilot him if you want, or you can use the "hire a hacker" rules in...Unwired, I think.

Also, you do realise that a hacker is only one way to gather information, right?