Casting Shadows

This week’s seed is for Shadowrun by Catalyst Game Labs.  This is another big year for this venerable and intriguing property, but with the online, video and other forms of gaming gearing up for staggered release, I hope that the focus on the RPG is not lost. With a 5th Edition due, we will find ourselves once again at a pivot point of gaining and losing players. Fingers crossed, chummer~

My Saturday Seeds also reappear on Ancient Scroll on random Saturdays~

The seed

The seed involves a healthy mix of protection, detection, deception, and violence, and for once it might not be Mr. Johnson who is doing most of the lying.

Planting the seed

The seed is envisioned for a group of non-magical, action-oriented characters of low to medium experience who are willing and able to handle heavier jobs than their rep might suggest. They will need to be open to the idea of working with others as on this run, the client is another runner who is recruiting support for a job that is proving to be much tougher than it was supposed to be. The runner in question is a scarred combat mage  on his own who has recently drifted into town looking to put together a team of combat specialists for a job of his own which smacks of revenge and low-profit.

The Details

A trusted contact and a fixer that is usually worth listening to both mention that a mage running under an assumed name (knowing who they think he really is, costs extra), needs a team to help protect a person for a few days. The pay is decent, and the protectee is a doctor who specializes in helping overcome chemical addictions. The doctor has no idea who is trying to kill him but has been getting taunting notes describing his impending death and the details in those notes are starting to occur. He reached out to grateful contacts from the streets to help when a threat against two of the nurses he works with was carried out within an hour of his receiving the message. The result was the hire of the mage.

After analyzing the threatening messages, the death of the nurses, and foiling one attack on the doctor’s life, the mage realizes he needs backup or both he and the doctor are toast.

The fixer knows that the mage is passing on the whole fee for the job, minus expenses, to whatever runners sign on, plus sweetening the pot with funds of his own.

The threat is supposed to be a team of highly trained hitters, with a clever mage fronting the team. They have a reputation of being able to infiltrate and neutralize most mundane and magical protections without leaving much of a trace.

The doctor is worth protecting, or at least worth having owe a person who one day might need medical treatment. The risk vs reward seems high, but more favors might be finagled out of the mage or his client should things go awry.

Rumors about the mage could be obtained with a little effort, and will lead to a story of a brutal act of retribution by a corp no one has any reason to love, which wiped out his cabal and his crew of runners – as well as some loved ones, depending on who you believe. He is on the run and desperate to find people he can ‘trust’ to help him take down the corp…. later.

What is going on

The mage has been hired by a ganger posing as Mr. Johnson on behalf of the doctor. He has the doctor’s best interest at heart and will certainly lend aid from his gang to support the defense if needed.

The mage has actually been hired by a cartel to kill the doctor, but is a very eccentric sort of assassin who prefers to keep many, many layers of identity between himself and the world. He has hired a team to try to take the doctor out by mundane means, and he has arranged to hire the characters to protect the doctor. In the confusion of a confrontation he will ensure the doctor goes down and the bulk of the attacking group of runners is taken out. Not an apparent success for the characters, but future opposition will have to recognize that they gave better than they got – the civilian got himself killed.

The mage will be most content with leaving on good terms with the characters, and will choose escape over confrontation should they catch on to his duplicity. Killing is a product, and he doesn’t give it away for free.

Enjoy~

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• Shadowrun Returns First Look (kickstarter.com)
• Harebrained Schemes Release The First ‘Shadowrun Returns’ Gameplay Footage (multiplayerblog.mtv.com)
• Feature: The Once And Future Future (gameological.com)
• Shadowrun’s 1990 Promo Is A Strange, Wonderful Thing (kotaku.com)