We’re playing Shadowrun!
Read about the campaign here:
https://doubleproficiency.com/2019/10/28/tomorrows-looking-bright/
Watch the episodes on YT:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwQngabhLGQ5XLHxAQa0BdRxrInMBLvfM
Visit our Discord channel to catch up on the between-the-sessions roleplay, and even make your own character and join us as a viewer-led NPC:
https://discord.gg/hQ7vtK6
Denver is a weird city: split between six more or less hostile countries, it’s a hub for smugglers, black marketers, and shadowrunners. The Big Game is played there, earning Denver the name of City of Shadows.
Meanwhile, a group of definitely-not-shadowrunners is trying to survive in the city’s worst district: Aurora Warrens.
Chuy who just wants to open his taco place.
Mack who needs to pay off his debts and cure his hangover.
Sax who wishes he was left alone to pursue his passion for music.
Tacho who just managed to get his junk car to work and hopes nothing bad happens to it.
Tomorrow who has a ton of magical research to do when she’s not partying.
Alas, life happens.
Pre-game RP
17 May 2055, 20:00
Mack and Tomorrow get a message from Lillian Friese, Cutters’ XO and their friend (levels of friendship vary but it’s as magical as a friendship between a shaman, a mystic adept, and a hermetic magician should be).
Hoi, chummers! A couple of the civvies have been grabbed by the Treys yesterday when they were coming back from The Dogs. The fragheads want to sell them back to us for a missile launcher and a rocket, so the boss decided to give it to them – at velocity they might not enjoy. They’re holed up in the Settler’s Park, in their pad by the playground. We’re moving in by morning, so if you wanna get your neighbors back before they get geeked along with the Trey chucklefrags, you have until about 8am.
– Friese ((05.17.2055))
After a bit of back-and-forth, Mack and Tomorrow decided to learn as much as they can before they jump into the fray between two gangs. Mack sent a spirit to do basic recon, and Tomorrow talked to the neighbors to learn what exactly happened. They quickly learnt that:
- Two orks, Maddie and Lennox, were kidnapped from the Shadowmarket (not on their way back from The Digs pub) where they went to buy supplies for their kids: Mary, Shawn, and Billy, as one of the smugglers, Rat-Tail, just dropped a lot of baby formula and diapers.
- Trey Eights took this moment to attack the market to steal what they can; BBs fought them off but the gangers snatched Maddie and Lennox on their way out. They plan on blackmailing the Cutters; Logan, the Cutters’ leader, will have none of it, and decided to blow them up as an example, to prevent further kidnappings.
- Maddie’s and Lennox’s kids are fine – together with their oldest, Annie, they got taken care of by Ms. Adams, one of the neighbors.
- Treys are keeping the kidnapped pair in a small maintenance shed in Settler’s Park, about a kilometer to the East from Best Western. There’s a total of eight of them, and they look rather relaxed, drinking and smoking.
Not liking these odds, Mack and Tomorrow decided to: a) get more intel; b) get some help. Meeting at Tomorrow’s, they talked options and in the end, sent Mack on astral recon, as his spirit earlier didn’t encounter any astral obstacles. He was gifted with an air elemental to keep him safe and hidden. After a couple of minutes Mack was back with news:
- There’s still eight Treys, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way.
- Maddie and Lennox are being kept in the shed, chained but otherwise not bothered.
- Treys’ don’t expect the trade of weapons to happen; Mack overheard the conversation between two gangers: they’re waiting for Cutters to do something and they’re expecting to get paid afterwards. By whom and for what was still a mystery.
Tomorrow, who spent that time digging through her datasoft on Denver gangs, mentioned that the Treys are technically a part of the same gang as the BBs, so maybe it’s a joint operation against the Cutters. If it was just a straight kidnapping, maybe they could solve it on their own with invisibility here, concealment there, lockpick, shapechange, movement, home by midnight approach but if it’s a matter of gang politics, the smart choice would be to get some backup.
So they did: A message put on the Best Western LTG got them Sax, a self-proclaimed small-time decker and a much better musician. After updating him on the recent findings and agreeing that the objective is to save Maddie and Lennox, not kill off the Treys, they discussed the ways of diverting Treys’ attention from the hostages. Realising that the Treys might be connected to the Matrix there, Sax decided to check if there’s anything worth hacking into in Settler’s Park. They parted for the time being.
Tomorrow, never the one to sit while she can fly, decided to visit Clock, one of the Best Western’s residents, who offered to get them at the cost the gear needed to rescue Maddie and Lennox. She was hoping for a microphone to help her pull off a trick on the gangers but sadly, high quality (or even working) gear is hard to come by in the Warrens, and Clock didn’t have any to spare. Not letting that mess up her plans, Tomorrow did the next best thing: summoned Steven, an air elemental, and flew to the Settler’s Park in her raven form.
Perching on the roof or a ruined building around the park, hidden and protected by her spirit, she pulled up her goggles and did as much snooping around as she could without revealing herself. Sending the elemental to work as a microphone in the building, she managed to get the gangers to spill their plans with a subtle Influence spell. She learnt that there was a message sent from BBs’ leader, Amy Steur, detailing all the plans for this evening, confirming her hunch about the BBs working with the Treys on this thing. Tomorrow left the elemental in the building to keep and eye on the things and inform her on any changes via telepathic link.
A moment later, she updated Sax on the matter, and after a short and successful hacking, Sax came up with the aforementioned message:
Oi, fragfarts. Rip told me to remind you the plan. S. wants to hold the bleeders we nabbed where sh wanted until the Cutter’s rig shows up. The moment you hear the engine, get on the slide – gotta get them in nice position with their rears to the south, so the sniper can geek them morons. The moment they stop to aim, leg it to the shed. I’ll open the shaft from the terminal, and we bail it to the sewers before they blow us up. Got it? If you sleep on the gig, you’re on yer own, eejits. Vinkle.
Armed with the knowledge, Sax, Mack and Tomorrow decided to talk to Cutters about the whole thing, as it grew more and more above let’s save our neighbors. Swapping ideas and plans, they couldn’t decide on one, so they decided to split and reconvene at three in the morning, with fresh minds, maybe some more intel, and with Mack having updated Friese on their findings.
Meanwhile, a young ork named Tacho was just fixing his car in front of the building and making way too much noise. After being told by Tomorrow to stop the goddamn noise and let people work because we have two neighbors that need rescuing – so maybe help instead of waking people up at two in the morning, he decided to, indeed, help. Another of Best Western residents, Chuy, also offered to help, and they both got invited to the meeting at three.
Mack talked to Friese and managed to dissuade the Cutters from hitting the Treys as planned; he even managed to get them to cover our hasty retreat is anything goes terribly wrong. Tomorrow drew plans and schemed but one thing was nagging at her: Friese told them in the beginning that Maddie and Lennox were coming back from the local pub, The Digs (called The Dogs almost universally), but she also had numerous witnesses of the kidnapping happening at the Market. Figuring that her friend wouldn’t lie to her, she told Friese about the discrepancy and learnt that, indeed, Friese got fed a fake info by somebody else. It ended up with a quick Cutters’ meeting, after which Tomorrow was gifted with a flare gun – to be pointed at whatever BBs have set up there.
And now we start the session…
18 May 2055, 03:00
The five met at Tomorrow’s place, her being the one who organised the rescue party. Chuy came with tequila, tacos, and three backpacks full of drugs and B&E gear, so was warmly welcomed by everyone. Before the meeting dissolved into a party, the guys were strong-armed by Tomorrow into talking tactics.
Green house: Best Western. Purple shopping cart: Shadow Market. Pink circle: Treys hideout.
Red rectangle: probable snipers’ positioning. Yellow, blue, and purple lines: probable Cutters’ routes for a vengeance quest.
The fact was, getting Maddie and Lennox out of peril wasn’t the hardest part. The hardest part was how to do it:
- without getting shot,
- without the Treys realizing what’s happening,
- without the BBs knowing their communication has been intercepted,
- without the Cutters blowing everything to smithereens in the middle of the rescue operation.
After discussing the options for the night and Tomorrow confirming that there are only two guards standing outside and the rest is fast asleep, they decided to use it to their advantage.
Sax stayed in the building, at his terminal, hacking away at the ancient IC protecting the matrix in Settler’s Park. Soon he got himself the control of all the electronics, including the main door, and the other four moved to action in Tacho’s brand new junk-car. We took the northern, yellow route but Tacho decided to go further east, allowing us to approach the Settler’s Park from north-east, away from the guards. Tomorrow split to fly above the park in her raven form and make sure what’s the guards’ positioning is, and finding just the two before the front door, she found a safe place to land, turned back into an elf, and shared the image from her goggles with the rest of the party.
Mack asked a spirit to hide the Tacho, Chuy, and himself with concealment and soon they were sneaking up on the unsuspecting guards. Sax unlocked the building’s door via matrix, and Chuy pushed them open, causing one of the guards to start turning towards them. A quick Influence spell from Tomorrow, and the guard was made sure it must have been the wind. But he’d recognize the thieves’ guild armor everywhere. Thankfully undiscovered, Mack and Chuy moved inside the building, Tacho staying by the door to keep an eye on the guards. Raven-Tomorrow flew inside as well, took a good look at sleeping Maddie and Lennox, and turned them both into small dogs. Mack gently picked the pair up and snuck out of the building. Chuy dug through his pile of drugs and dosed the three sleeping gangers with push, sending them high as a kite and ensuring they won’t wake up any time soon.
Less than a minute after moving into the building, everybody was out of there, with two yorks being carried to safety. Tomorrow stayed behind to keep an eye on the situation, while the rest proceeded to sneak away through the park towards the car left just behind the corner.
Not even ten minutes later, exactly at five in the morning, the sound of a truck’s engine was heard from the south, and a moment later an old truck appeared on the road, driving straight at the Treys’ hideout. On the other side of the park, a couple of drones appeared, and started shooting at the truck. The truck hit the shed and exploded, sending all gangers inside into oblivion. The BBs appeared from the west, shooting at the drones, and the whole park changed into a regular battlefield, nicely covering up the sound of a single car driving three guys and two dogs to safety.
Meeting back at Best Western, Maddie and Lennox got released from the spell, informed about their kids’ whereabouts, and sent their way. The five neighborhood heroes sat down to drink that hard-earned tequila and eat tacos.
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What happens next? No idea. Join our Discord server and learn that at the same time we do!
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