Icarus's blog: "Augurs, Martyrs, and Agnostics"

My brother called today, and he announced his intentions to have our high level shadow run group face off against the impossible.

 

For some background information, Shadowrun is a cyberpunk (hacking, super internet, magic, cybernetic augmentations, super AI's, megacorporations with private armies) with fantasy elements (dragons, spirits, mages, shamans, arcana, astral plane) based on a Fasa metaverse.

 

The end all

be all

super deathmobile in FASA is a Horror. But in Shadowrun these boogers are sealed in astral space, and therefore not a threat (hell, people don't even really believe in them any more).

So the next best thing is

a Great Dragon.

And they are the pinacle of being in this setting.

Super secretive.

Super magical (the highest stat a human can have on anything is 9- dragons range in the 20's and 30's)

Rich megacorp owners, stockbrokers (going back to the goldhoarding thing)

thousands of years old (wise, and smart survivalist fuckers)

 

Generally- you want to stay FAR off of their shitlist.

Has anyone ever taken down a GD? I've not heard of it.

 

Now, our group consists of 4 characters, a band of contacts and arms dealers, and somewhat friendly relations with the head Yakuza of New Seattle, and an elder spirit that dwells outside of town.

We're pretty hot shit.

We've got my brother's NPC (since he's GM): A cybernetically enhanced, nightblind, armblown off radical bomber (dude managed to level most of downtown in one mission with very little effort, my brother has a knack for finding available and highly deadly items in SR that happens to be explosives)

 

My cousin's PC which is... probably the most useless one in the bunch- I think he tried to make it some charismatic, strategist, party leader sunglass wearing "cool guy"

but failed miserably. He has no charisma, he has no ettiquette skills, and generally doesn't know

what the fuck he's doing roleplaying or character interacting.

Ever.

But! He does have a cannon, and a custom armor plated SUV with a minigun mounted in the back.

Which we've used in several pickles.

And big surprise- he has a tendency to stomp all over my interactions

Him: "now now, let the grownups figure out what's going on- I have a plan"

Me: "Yeah, and its probably twice as retarded as your last one"

Anyway, when he's not trying to be super suave- he's usually investing in better combat cybernetics, and more guns.

 

Our friend's character which... took a couple redesigns, but he eventually developed a vehicle rigger (think... advanced driver/tank commander) with a light urban assault tank. Now that's, pretty god damn broke for a new character, but the assault tank has its own personality... and its a bit

off.

Hilariously off. "I think I found my grenade launcher, but I don't think I'm going to let you use it."

"We're being attacked by a fucking dragon!!!"

"I know, but you wouldn't let me play with that cat, so you don't get to play with my grenades!"

Anyway- the damn thing climbs walls, blows up most light vehicles with no effort, and it has vehicle armor which is a step above anything available for me to have on my person.

 

And then there's me.

 

...

...

oh, I should probably say what my character is

weeeeellllll

I always wanted to play Gray Fox, the Cyborg Ninja from Metal Gear Solid 1.

So...

I made Gray Fox, the Cyborg Ninja from Metal Gear Solid 1.

 

Now- in my own defense, I designed that character in high school

and

I did tweak his story, background, and behaviour around.

And its not like there's no such thing as a "cyborg ninja" in Shadowrun.

And its not like designing a super fast, strong, armored, invisible combat berserk death machine assassin is a BAD idea (especially in this setting).

Hell, two of the "suggested preconstruct jobs" are

"Street Samurai" (cybernetically enhanced soldier of fortune)

and "Infiltrationist" (... a latex wearing lockpicking ninja)

My character just combines the two, and is heavilly inspired by something AWESOME!!!

 

Okay

so

you might be wondering what our little group is... missing?

 

We're nothing but combat types.

Sure, we hit different ranges, functions, targets as a group

but we're pretty much the peak of combat types available.

 

My cousin is a heavy weapon user.

My brother uses explosives and light antipersonnel weapons.

Our friend has a mostly anti-personnel light tank with a personality disorder.

And I'm a cyborg on the verge of losing his humanity that turns invisible and stabs people in the throat at blinding fast speed and ferocity.

You would not BELIEVE the attack and damage bonuses one receives when they fight invisible.

 

Thig game consists of a cyber world, corporate hacking, corporate security, lil attack robots and remote controlled "drones", mages that can heal, mages that can buff, mages that can transcend this reality and wander around in another one, mages that can turn into animals, mages that can melt brains and level cities, mages that are on journeys

and

"faces".

Sleuths, charmers, fixers, private investigators

etc.

 

We

are none of these things.

When my brother would throw a "face-heavy" (charisma/roleplaying character) book mission at us

we didn't know where to go- how to play, what to do (especially since we knew DICK about Shadowrun lore, and focused mainly on totally sweet guns, cyberware, and explosives, we didn't know the "Green Fox Bar" was where every street smart runner went for information, or to tip the guy in the hat to find out more info about our employer)

so finally, we found a mid-level executive for the bad guys, put a gun to her head, she hit the panic button, we jumped through a window, and my brother had to invent stats for the character and clues she could give us while I threatened to blow her kneecaps out in the back of the SUV.

Unprecedented in book mission design.

When a Red Dwarf (a famous ethnic gang comprising of- you guessed it, dwarves) mouthed off to us when we were looking for clues in RD territory, my cousin told him to go fuck himself, he menaced us with his shotgun (not attack us mind you- just threatened us with it)- and before he could finish what he was saying, I rolled my reaction and initiative, pulled out my magnum and shot him in the liver.

My cousin and I then murdered every Red Dwarf in New Seattle while hunkering down for cover behind a pile of I-beams at a construction site.

And yes, my brother had to look up Red Dwarf gang size, stats and armament

from a SEPERATE sourcebook just to have that play out the way it would have.

Also unprecedented in book missions.

 

My brother: "Dude, you could have given him $1,000 and made him and most of his gang your ally for LIFE. Do you realize how poor and unequipped these gangers are?"

Me... amid a pile of smoking corpses: "We do now."

We got quite a bit of experience and money for doing that.

But in all honesty

we are NOTORIOUS at this point, which is apparently -not- the goal for Shadowrunners.

 

We make the evening news, corps are watching us, dragons are watching us, gangs are watching us...

If an SUV gets blown up, or a city block

we probably get name recognition as plausible suspects.

If a mysterious pile of bodies executed with a blade in a corp headquarters pops up- its probably "the cyborg ninja"

if a bug-like tank is spotted with a guy in a white suit...

you get the idea.

 

But we are extremely well paid, in demand, and maxed out in every stat we care about.

 

We do however run away pissing our pants if a low level mage notices us.

We have no mage character, and therefore no defense for magic.

We have no hacker, therefore we have no misinformation specialist spreading counter-rumors about our exploits online or offline (thus making us BIGGER targets).

 

I'm the only character with any lockpicking, sneaking, infiltration, and speach skills.

I tend to have a plan, or at least something involving a breaking and entering diversion+explosives+minimalizing armed combat and clusterfucks

and I tend to get outvoted.

 

We tend to have a few dozen clusterfucks per session.

 

Anyway

the backstory for our send off.

Our last hurrah (my brother hates GM'ing and we haven't gotten together to play in ... 5 years)

Is planned to be

 

The Merc

The Bomber

The Ninja

The Tank

 

of great notoriety

Versus

 

A Cybernetic Toxic (term used for something harmful to magic and astral space as a whole) Great Dragon.

 

Put the words "great" and "toxic" on something in this setting, and you typically double its power.

"Cyber-zombie" is an "oh fu-"

 

I'm not convinced we have the means to take down a great dragon.

What my brother is proposing, is a heretical, world ending, toxic Great Dragon

WITH cybernetic steroids, limbs, nerves... etc.

 

One problem is that a cyber dragon does and DOES not make sense in the setting (magic and cybernetics do NOT mix, they actually cause explosions) but it does make sense for immortality, and power hungry dragons.

 

We're going to be approached by a dragon's representative to take down the evil Cyberdragon, and potentially save the universe (the Cyberdragon has found a way to tear the astral plane in order to augment its own magic and maintain its own cybernetics, the tear itself is destabilizing astral space, and thus our reality as well).

The enemy will have a private army (which is why they're not just going full on clash of private armies versus dragon- New Seattle would be completely destroyed), a megacorp (so virtually unlimited money and resources to track our moves), magical barriers, mundane barriers (cement bunker and highrise towers with sniper posts?)

The biggest handicap: No nukes, and no solutions that involve destroying new seattle.

So... in all liklihood

after the meeting ends, and our employer deposits funds into our bank account

if we so much as purchase a stick of gum

that Cyberdragon is going to know

and he's going to make a countermeasure for that stick of gum.

 

So...

how do you destroy the face of the end of the world?

As my brother described him "The Razor Winged God of the end".

The 100,000 year old mage, trillionaire, and icon of corrupt space and reality.

Now my brother did say that his magic would be diminished (again the whole cybernetics versus magic thing, and he's ripping open space with a large portion of his energy)

but that doesn't mean this thing might not still have the ability to

1. Read our minds.

2. Melt our minds.

And I asked about familiars (GD's have a tendency to keep VERY powerful humans and spirits as their representatives and pets). He said nothing magical was willing to work with him since he's... the fucking END!

 

Why us?

"We're the best hitters in New Seattle that wouldn't draw out a private army- this is more of an assassination than warfare"

 

I need magical immunity... power armor... a fleet of drones mounted with railguns

explosives rigged on every landing point with enough juice to level a tower

miniguns that shoot diamonds

diversions

the element of surprise

just to "get him down to great dragon level"

... and I still think we're going to get outplayed, and outmatched.

 

Right now my leading strategy is to throw battleships at him

and to see if there's some way we can force his cyberware to fail even if we can't hurt the dragon directly (turns out dragon bodies are tougher than silicone and wiring)

 

I honestly don't think we can do it.

But damn if that isn't the best way to go out in Shadowrun.

 

I think we should codename this mission "Strangelove".