[Shadowrun] Agents of the Dragon

[z-Xiao Saori]

Let me put it this way: Method's player has done this a shit-ton more than I have. I don't mind him taking the lead because he knows that the fuck he is doing, IC and OOC. So far, he's done just fine. He even said please. More than once.

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Besides, if Saori isn't the official leader, she doesn't have to be responsible and shit.

[Sakurako Hino]

Okay. Okay... I'm not dredging that subject. I was speaking more to Krul and looking for queues as to what I should do in character next so I get this right.

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Remember, I said I would ask if needed. This is one of those times.

[SalmonMax]

Otter knows what's expected of her. She'll do her job, regardless of which meatbag barks something at her.

[Vaughn]

Geeze, a fella can't go to sleep for the night without people posting all over him.

[The Red Man]

In a word: No.

[Tawny Roberts]

For the record, I'm not taking up the lead. Method is a professional and expects everyone to just do their job, they don't need a leader. If Saori was 'up' the they'd defer to Saori's guidance, keep her safe, and let her do her thing. She becomes the boss because it's her home turf, Face stuff.

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He organized the group into tasks, and had someone done the same thing he might have followed suit, if he considers them professional. What he doesn't consider professional is when a runner is begging the company for ammo, telling him that since he's leaving the country he might need a passport (which doesn't exist anymore since they're part of your SIN) and the person who is supposed to be getting us there (our rigger) is asking the person giving us the job what route we'll be taking... isn't that the riggers job?

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I used my post to bypass the inane time wasting portion of the game. The legwork can be done via commlinks and appropriate contacts/dicepools.

[The Red Man]

...because if the discussing things over and over again part takes too long, Red will get bored.

[SalmonMax]

It's also worth saying that if you're not sure of something (like passports or route) you CAN ask OOC, so that the player's mistake or ignorance doesn't reflect poorly, and unfairly, on the character.

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And that way it doesn't slow the actual game down either.

[Viktoriya Orlov]

Exactly. If it's something the character would know how to do, but you don't, there's no harm in asking OOC. It'll save on avoidable goofs and edits.

[Sakurako Hino]

...What he doesn't consider professional is when a runner is begging the company for ammo, telling him that since he's leaving the country he might need a passport (which doesn't exist anymore since they're part of your SIN) and the person who is supposed to be getting us there (our rigger) is asking the person giving us the job what route we'll be taking... isn't that the riggers job?

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Ammo: Taken care of. In fact it was smoothed over last night after you left.

Passport: I forgot I did have a fake SIN. Funny, it was her old identity before she became a changeling. Odd how much you forget when you don't have a character sheet in front of you every moment of a game.

As for the route, I was having Endeavor think out loud. But she was conferring with her teammates on a course of action. I don't remember having E ask Nadja anything about routes.

[Krul]

Requested Info sent, that should be enough to kick things into gear and to tell you folks all of the various dangers involved, shouldn't be any more questions to ask, you know where you need to go, you know what you need to do, you know why they want it done. The rest, will need you go out there and 'get your hands dirty'

[SalmonMax]

Yep! Boots on the ground.

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While we're going...ie - not taking any time over and above travel time...Death Otter will see if she can match the pyramid from the ritual to any identifiable sites.

[z-Xiao Saori]

If I screwed something up, please let me know, folks.

[SalmonMax]

Seems good, and very cute.

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I think the ritual is that one that interfered with the great dragon's magic, isn't it?

[Dawn OOC]

I think so too, but I wanted to check with Krul to see if something more was going on. Just trying to be a properly paranoid runner.

[Sakurako Hino]

And if it is something that was indeed potent (and such a blood ritual would be) perhaps even the cure was broke/twisted.

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I'd hate to say it, but if that artifact was completely twisted by this, we might have no other choice but to destroy it with the compound. That's a potential outcome on this. Of course, the ritual might also be this potent just to counteract the defenses on the artifact for now. But it is gonna need massive cleansing once we get it back, as mentioned in the two data packets. Luckily for those of us stuck on this plane we can cover the operation on our home turf.

[Krul]

Considering that the time stamp on the ritual was October 3, 2074 1530 Zulu time, and that was the same moment that Aztlan forces engaged Sirrung, that's a fairly good guess... I suppose I should put together a basic date run down for 2074. (this was the war between Aztlan and Amazonia and started in 2073, during that time, Azltan lost millions of forces to the great dragon, and raids by him deep into Azltan territory ended in killing more millions)

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November 5-6 - The Dragon Wars which started in August reached their climax, with an end game involving a battle between Lowfry and Alamais, and ending with Almaris death, to the point of being choped to pieces.

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Ghostwalker and Harlequin had a big and unfriendly meeting in the city of Denver, on November 1st, both seemed to have allies arrive at the last minute and convince the two to withdraw. (the public only knew a very powerful elf mage went at it with a very powerful Great Dragon, and neither died), Aztechnology moved into the city and a new treaty of Denver is being prepared, as the time on the last one has expired.

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Seattle is something of a stat of public turmoil, with scandal at the highest levels, and Prop 23 made the Ork Underground a legal district of Seattle, even with heavy opposition, the Seattle Governor has been implicated in a number of activities involve Humanis,

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Nicholas Aurellus, board member of Ares (and the moral conscience of the company) was killed in the air by what seems to be an insect spirit attack, September 5th

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During the year, Metahuman-Dragon relations went fairly bad, Metahumans being angry at the actions of Almaris and Sirrung and attacking known drakes and dragons.. and dragons being angry at metahumans.. a good number of deaths on both sides (millions on the side of metahumans, thousands of drakes, and a few dragons)

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Novemember 8th, all . all great dragons up and left their lairs simultaneously in November the 8th, , haven't been seen sense..

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Todays date - January 7th

[Viktoriya Orlov]

Datafile: Viktoriya Orlov

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SIN: UCAS6S3V-7K0T-CA51

Birth Name: Viktoriya Orlov
Aliases: None

Social Networking Tag: #LoneStarGrl
Birth Date: 11/23/2051
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Metatype: Human
Gender: Female
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 135 lb.
Hair: Platinum Blonde
Eyes: Aureate (Feline)

Distinguishing Physical Features & Appearance:

• Petite, compact, proportionately curvaceous.
• Bright golden feline eyes and strikingly pale blonde hair.
• Dresses in a highly distinctive "steampunk" style with customized gear and weaponry.

Psychological Profile:

• Fastidious to a fault, even in high-pressure situations.
• Lapses into rapid-fire Russian under stressful conditions.
• Displays a complete inability to express sadness, melancholy, or grief.

Traits:

• Exceptional marksman.
• Trained in a particularly brutal style of close-quarters combat focused on swift takedowns and disabling opponents.
• Skilled in utilizing improvised demolitions.
• Architectural studies and facility in maneuvering in urban environments enables her to locate optimal sniping positions.
• Has a tendency to sing or hum quietly while working to improve concentration and determine proper timing and pacing.
• Loves cannons.

Apparent Motivations

• None. Viktoriya has no obvious motivation for pursuing a career in the shadows.

Current Residence: Draco Foundation
Life Style: Middle

Street Cred: 16
Public Awareness: 6
Notoriety: 2

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>>>>>(Okay, so I keep hearing about some Russian sniper who's been playing Angel of Death all over Seattle and the UCAS, who never sleeps, and who's supposedly working covertly for Draco. Anyone out there actually had eyes on her?)<<<<<
- Frosty (22:04:07/08-14-74)

>>>>>(Hard to miss 'er. Sweet little blonde in that high-end neo-Victorian getup all the cool kids are wearing these days. Even had her bike tricked out in brass, courtesy of the Draco Foundation's generous holiday bonus.)<<<<<
- TresPerros (09:17:29/08-17-74)

>>>>>(So wait, wait. She's got connections to the so-called "White" Vory in the Sprawl, she's a former Lone Star operative, and now she's basically working for a bleeding dragon? This broad's got "bad news" written all over her pretty little datatrail.)<<<<<
- InTheKnow (10:24:01/08-19-74)

>>>>>(That's an affirmative on all counts.)<<<<<
- TresPerros (04:19:37/08-22-74)

>>>>>(From what I can tell, there's not much "covert" about this one, at least as far as her identity goes. It's been confirmed she's working for Draco, and she's easy to pick out in a crowd, but actually pinning something on her? I dunno. Rumors are all I've got.)<<<<<
- Winterhawk (16:23:25/08/22/74)

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>>>>>(I don't get it. No aliases, no disposable IDs, no creepy white masks. Someone tell me why nobody's tried to cack her yet?)<<<<<
- CHowTheyRun (14:49:11/09-12-74)

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>>>>>(Oh, they have.)<<<<<
- LoneStarGrl (22:12:08/09-14-74)

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>>>>>(Fun-sized Russian chick with an avid appreciation for subconscious compensatory phallic manifestations. Please tell me she's got heeled boots.)<<<<<
- MacLamour (03:18:37/09-24-74)

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>>>>>(Great tits, too. And I hear she's single.)<<<<<
- CrimsonFuckr (10:53:31/09-24-74)

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Description of Residence

Viktoriya's apartment at the Draco Foundation is immaculate, with a few personal touches added since her employment began. A heavy brass door-knocker, tarnished and slightly misshapen by heat, has been affixed (quite anachronistically and unnecessarily) to the outside of her door; the vague shape of an eagle and a roughly circular monogram are the only identifiers. Inside, the floor is a crisp, regimented pattern of alternating black and white squares, and a large, lone rectangular rug in slightly faded crimson and gold has been placed precisely in the center of the room. A handful of real books, most of them in Russian, are arranged neatly on the simulated wood shelving units built into the walls left and right of the door, contained between pairs of weighty metal bookends in the shape of human hands, gazelles, and hunting hounds. Prominently on display on those same shelves are an assortment of sepia-toned images stored in digital frames- not portraits, but "gifts" from Red depicting various invented sexual escapades between members of the team. Also present: a grinning grotesque inkwell, an analog timepiece with the casing removed to exhibit the pristine, polished inner workings, and a large, bleached avian skull in a bell jar. The ambient light sources (those not permanently embedded in the ceiling) are wired into amber-tinted sconces on the walls, adjusted with dimmers; the standard industrial overhead lighting is rarely used. A somewhat worn-looking reproduction of a roll-top desk from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, an antiquated gramophone (retrofitted internally to play digital sound files) on a stand, a trio of brown leather armchairs (one of which, positioned between a smoking stand and globe bar, has clearly seen more use), and a low faux-wood coffee table complete the main room's fairly spartan furnishings.

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The bedroom is similarly tidy, containing only a synth-wood bed dressed in shades of mossy green and ivory, a reproduction steamer trunk sealed with a "brass" biometric lock, a free-standing wardrobe that might actually be genuine wood, and an end table bearing a small glass dish for jewelry and small personal effects.

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Only the tiny bathroom remains completely standard-issue, gleaming in sterile white and steel.

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Reference Images

Door Knocker:



Shelf Contents:

Lighting:

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Furniture:








Bedroom:

[Dave ST]

So, Mala asked me to review her character and see if it's all up to snuff. I have to ask something, Krul... Why does she follow the Buddhist tradition? Nothing about this PC has anything to do with Buddhism.

[z028 Riley]

Sorry, I didn't get that adjusted. Shae follows a tradition of her own, one Krul and I came up with Buddhist is just the first on the drop-down list in Chummer with the right Drain resistance stat.

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Thank you!

[Krul]

She actually follows a variant that is closest to chaos magic that uses intuition as the drain stat, which is why she ended up with that, I didn't say anything about it at the time sense I knew what she meant by it. and that is the one thing that chummer doesn't exactly cover, so she didn't fix it.

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Along those lines, I noticed those of you who have magic and initiation, for some of you I didn't get known metamagic techniques on your sheet, though I know I discussed them with everyone, so if you could add those to what you sent me, under your spells or adept powers, I would appreciate it.

[Dave ST]

Method doesn't possess any meta-magic techniques.

[The Red Man]

He has Method-magic techniques.

,, ,,

Krul, I think you've got all mine on the sheet I gave you.

[Vivi OOC]

I have metamethod techniques, if that counts.

[Krul]

*chuckles* Method and Red are fine on that level, which is why I said 'some of you'

[Sakurako Hino]

Okay I got a pretty big question.

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Red is trying to set something up about our guns in Shadows. It was stated in BSSM that our weapons, gear, etc were on my plane. Now if there is some sort of retcon going on I would like to know, otherwise pretty much everyone would have access to their weapons but myself as mine would be stuck on the plane.

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Also if a retcon was planned why wasn't I told?

[z-Xiao Saori]

Okay I got a pretty big question.

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Red is trying to set something up about our guns in Shadows. It was stated in BSSM that our weapons, gear, etc were on my plane. Now if there is some sort of retcon going on I would like to know, otherwise pretty much everyone would have access to their weapons but myself as mine would be stuck on the plane.

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Also if a retcon was planned why wasn't I told?

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Let me state this clearly. We do not conspire against you, Kami. I know people in your past games have. I get that. Understand that I get really tired of being accused indirectly of going around behind your back and setting your PCs up for failure. Because when it comes down to it, that is exactly what that reads like to me.

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Now, all Red is doing is trying to get us all on the same damned page ICly. That is all. He's having his character communicate ICly to everyone else to make sure that we have our ducks in a row. His character is trying to help the mission succeed.

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Please dial back the paranoia. The people in this game have done nothing to earn it, IC or OOC. Stop treating us like we deserve to be mistrusted. I am real damned tired of it.

[Tawny Roberts]

Frankly, there shouldn't be any retcons. Now, I do understand that a lot of the players are 'new' to Shadowrun, so some leeway would be nice, but I'm awfully damn tired of every time someone does something less than intelligent, they dial back and take their action back.

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But I'm with Saori, quit being so damn paranoid. Red asked a question.

[Krul]

There will be no 'retcons', I am willing to give a little leeway at the moment for fine tuning characters, and in this case I've given some leeway to several players with regards to minor things, but there's no way I'm going to allow something major to be changed, please don't take a few casual words to mean more then they do.

[Viktoriya Orlov]

Kami/Endeavor: The IC-chat thread discussion, as Red stated in his spoiler-box, is just to get us on the same page in-character so we can smooth over the issues we already discussed in the -actual- chat room OOC. Since the vast majority of the players in this game are either completely new to SR, or haven't played in years (decades, in at least one case), I would much prefer to identify areas where the character would know what to do, even if the player doesn't, and adjust as necessary. In this case, since most players weren't aware there would be an issue with the weaponry, and it was already stated by some that they actually had their gear with them, I presented a solution that Red is echoing in the IC-chat. That's it. No retcons. No edits. Just an adjustment of what follows.

[Sakurako Hino]

Never mind, just looked at the Shadows thread now.

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I do think we need GM direction now as I thought we have gotten past security. Some of us have been even posting as such, but now Method is snapping us back to the start with his post. Where are we really, and what is going on. There is so much the players can do.

[The Red Man]

Also Kami (and please, take this however you wish ) IF I was going to screw your character, and IF I was planning some nefarious Kami-centric plot of evil and wickedness....

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You'd not know it till too late anyway.

[Sakurako Hino]

I realize that everything is under control, Red. Shadows isn't an issue anymore.

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But also realize that right now I'm trying to figure out where everyone is at the airport, who is past security and who isn't.

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I'm just trying to work with everyone here. That, and there is a natural level of paranoid to be had in Shadowrun anyways.

[SalmonMax]

As I read it, we are all just now getting to security/customs. Method has gone first and has set the scene (thank you, Rev ).

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I think Krul should probably respond to that, then we can make whatever rolls we need to and work out what happens.

[Krul]

I'll take care of that tomorrow..

[Sakurako Hino]

Yeah, I'm going to wait for that to post again. I think that will get me back on course more than anything.

[Dave ST]

"Mr. Lucien Hunt." LOLZ

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I giggled.

[The Red Man]

[Sakurako Hino]

Guys.

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I think I am going to defer to Method and Red (and the other experienced SR players) for the first mission or two. Follow ther orders. I'm not used to running at this level and it's causing my paranoia to overflow. It's not helping matters and I think it's becoming an issue. I think I'd feel safer if I was someone's shadow for now.

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What I'm trying to say, is that I'm in over my head, and I need alot of help, I'm afraid.

[z-Xiao Saori]

That's fine. I'm leaning pretty heavily on the more knowledgeable players.