*Tap Tap*-This thing on? Obligatory Mic Check Comeback

Well then.

It's been awhile, eh? I believe my last post was *checks* March 14(heh), 2018. That's almost two years ago.

I mean, real life happens! The little man is becoming the bigger man now-but he's also in kindergarten full time(he was in half-day preschool before this), so between(mostly) that, my other freelancing work, and the other stuff I do for entertainment(Final Fantasy XIV and fighting games, for folks that know me a lot), a lot of my tabletop RPG stuff sort of fell by the wayside. Couple this with my old group being a little more D&D based these days for fantasy(which I also have been playing and enjoying!), it seemed that I ran out of juice for the blog.

But, as I told myself this new year's, I'll be writing more this year(I kept my 2020 goals fairly even; in terms of 'fun stuff' it's 'start raiding again', 'get back into fighting game guides' and 'write more RPG stuff', so it's time to use this for the third thing!

I still, of course, love my old school Shadowrun and this blog will continue as Old School. It may not be as *constant* as it was in 2017/2018, but I certainly hope to try to feed it something every few weeks or something. Some months more than others, possibly.

So yeah. Just wanted to say hello again. Expect some updates, hopefully soon, even if they're sporadic. I'll keep with my usual format of stuff(occasionally giving some 'newer' rules to use contacts with for folks who play later editions), but it'll stay 99% old school writing, houserules, and the like, using my usual old mishmash of 1st through 3rd edition.

(I've actually been working on trying to adapt some of the 3rd edition B/R skills into more wrapped up versions; after some time of mucking about with them I think I have some stuff I like.)

I'll be soon writing up another character, so stay tuned!

New Melek commissions!

So my buddy https://twitter.com/MoogMigMagMoog did this lovely commission of Melek once again! He is so much fun to get commissioned. She even put a bonus 'Post stompy' picture up in there!


Anyway, hope ya all enjoy the pictures:

New Fiction, Trail of Shadows!

Whee, Finally! Trail of Shadows is up. 

This one was slow going, it was a bit longer than normal, but I think it was mostly held back by

I again do have more planned that explores other characters, too! But, sometimes we just get inspired to visit certain ones so I do that rather than force other stuff, though I do have a few WIPs.

Hope you enjoy it! As a bit of a warning this one does as I mentioned have some nastier violence at the start, though it's not like Saw movie levels or anything, but just a heads up if you're a bit squeamish. It was more to sort of paint the situation and the mindset. Language-wise is standard Shadowrun cursing.

I will probably keep doing things more short story oriented. I had dabbled with the idea of doing a Shadowrun fan-novel, but at the end of the day, I feel that I work better like this. With a couple of very sparse exceptions, I tend to be a fan of 'shorter' stuff. Like, I prefer OVAs over long series for some reason. I dunno why for certain, but I always felt like I got more out of it just enjoying 2-3 things that told a story over like 5 seasons of stuff.

I'll probably connect a bunch of the stories, like, they're in the same timeline with similar characters/NPCs and the like, and have a few plot threads, but it won't be a technical novel.

On that note, I think everyone needs to watch Cyber City Oedo 808! It's a great 3-part OVA from the early-mid '90s that is cyberpunk, with a hint of 'mystical' through a bit of psychic stuff involved. There isn't a lot of cybernetics(one dude has cybereyes and there are cyborgs being made as weapons), but to be honest this is one of my favorite cyberpunk anime; meme-ified dub or not(and it does have some amusing stuff). I liked it more than most other cyberpunk anime(I'm more of a Cyber City/Bubblegum Crisis person than I am Alita or GitS, mostly because the former are less grim and humorless; the latter ones didn't gel with me). I like dystopian futures, but not completely shitty ones with like little light in the tunnel, even when there is bad stuff to be found. I like a balance, for all of the cruddy downtrodden people I like to see some over the top stuff go on with some more hope spots and some humor.

I'd watch the UK version, since it has a very killer and actually cult favorite soundtrack, which you can find here. It's pretty harsh on the language but the violence doesn't go overboard; it has a few graphic scenes but it actually pulled it off well compared to some of the '90s lolfests which just used it for the sake of it. The characters are cool, the action is tight, the cityscapes look awesome, and it's got just enough camp to keep it from being super grimdark.

The first episode is here, and you can find the 2nd here and the 3rd here. They did a great job, IMO, of giving a solid wrap-up to the 3 main characters, while still at the same time leaving something open if they wanted to revisit it some time in the future. For a final bit, you can find the soundtrack here; it's like synthrock and ambient electronic and really well done.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the story and I will be back with more in the future! Hopefully the close future.

If I'm not back blogging before the holidays, have a happy holidays all!

Holidays, Busy, Holiday Crud, Delays in Stuff, But It's All Good!

Hoi, chummers!

I'm still around! I know it's been sparser lately when I've been a little more active in the fall, but a couple of family colds(one of them a heavier cold virus but we're getting better), holiday stuff, writing a couple of guides and other odds and ends have kept me a little away from both of my blogs(this and my fighting game blog.)

But, I'm hoping to pick back up for the holidays and into the new year!

I'm in the process of working on doing the final edits on another short story coming up; a bit of a longer one(with a bit of fighting and other odds and ends.) I figure it'll be a good short story to wrap up the year with; I even include a new character!

Moving forward, I'll keep the blog going; maybe some more opinion pieces, more mechanical stuff for sure, more character writeups, and I will definitely continue some short stories going! I'm going to try to get some with all of the characters in at one point or another, but I write what inspires me and right now it's been a certain set of them. I'm sure I'll be moving around soon!

So just giving that short update along with a happy holidays to everyone! I hope to be back shortly with the new story(I actually plan on putting it up this weekend, so unless something goes badly wrong, look for it!) and other bits!

A 'Character Sheet' Post

As I get a lot of art and stuff done, I realize that a lot of the character into-stories, etc-are scattered about. They're easy enough to find; but sometimes putting them together into one post might be cool once in awhile once I have the following:

-Sheet
-Writeup
-Some Art
-Short Stories involving said character

So this will be sporadic(as I get art bit by bit), but I'd like to collect all bits of a character into one blog post when I can! (I'm getting some art done of Downfall and Talon, and the preview looks fantastic! Their post will come when that's all up!)




So for the art finally put together, good ol' Tarin Frost(Art done by Sall)

Background

Short Story 1(Night Shift)

Short Story 2(Neon & Chrome)

Character Sheet(Mechanics)

Some Ideas for Pink Mohawks

The ol' 'Pink Mohawk' is a nebulous term, but basically what it boils down to is 'A wilder, louder, playstyle.'

The terms, as I've mentioned a couple times, are all a little nebulous, and by no means are a perfect descriptor of anything, but as it usually goes-Pink Mohawk is the former, with Black Trenchcoat being the more serious, hard-boiled games that emphasize more sneaking, subterfuge, and stealth-sure, they can have combat, but it's likely done with a silenced pistol or garrote(if fatal), or with some quick subdual combat and some shock batons/gel rounds(if not); either way, it's about doing things on the down-low.

Demolitions can happen in either game; in a Black Trenchcoat game, they'd probably go about it by having the party's ork firearms expert play the role of the classic janitor after some sneaking about, as he passes the details of the building to the team demo expert. After a set time, they plant charges in the geometrically specific areas and blow the place, and are gone with no trace.

The Pink Mohawk brigade just blows the thing up however. No, Pink Mohawk need not be a bloodbath; it's perfectly Pink Mohawk to have a vigilante group who throws rainbow-paint spewing concussion grenades at baddies, tying them up with colored streamers and leaving them in an area with a spray-painted unicorn who farts rainbows on the wall outside the latest media center. Basically, it's much more obvious.

(There is a middle-sometimes called 'Mirrorshades', other times Black Mohawk...or even Pink Trenchcoat, that just signifies you play your game sort of on an in between.)

All of that said, again, the terms are nebulous, and you don't need to adhere to any(we play lots of styles in one campaign!), but if players are interested in a more loud 'n fun style, I have here a few campaign idea suggestions that might fill the role.


Big Game Hunters. This one is a great use of perfectly legal heavy ordnance. Some of those critters are, well, fraggin' BIG, and you often need extremely loud measures to take them down...occasionally needing clever measures as well. Also doubles as a pretty lucrative campaign as some of the bounties on the big critters can get pretty big. (It's suggested you have a mage or two in this one, since some critters tend to be REALLY resilient to mundane means. Yes, mages can use assault cannons too...) Also gives Riggers a chance to use Big Ass Drones and giant autocannons and helicopters and drek. Possibly a highly dangerous campaign as well, mind you, but for Pink Mohawk Big Game Hunters is a definite good idea. There are plenty of corp installations that are in more remote areas that risk attack by things(Juggernauts exist...) that teams like this could be hired to bring on. More 'Light Gray Hat' types could find work taking out big beasties who like to


Mercenaries. The nice thing with merc campaigns is they can run the gamut of loud or quiet; but they can certainly run loud. If battling other armies is more their fare, try a merc campaign. Mercs can also be a wide variety of moral types-just because you have large weapons, you don't necessarily have to kill everything you come across. As for 'Morals'-you can play it 'gun 'em down' Commando or Expendables style if you prefer more black comedy, or the less-lethal, 'Light Gray' but still loud A-Team style where the team doesn't really kill(they just leave lots of co-lateral damage), so there is likewise something here for many depending on what you like. Teams can run about anything, of course.


Demolitionists. Another fairly obvious bit; sometimes, drek needs to be blown up-offshore oil rigs of rival corps, or perhaps testing labs, or whatever. The team gets hired to blow up said drek. You probably want explodey skills like, well, demolitions for this(though throwing explodey things also works, as do missiles launched at things.) In any case, there is always a need for stuff to blow up; this group is likely to just do it loud.


A Distraction Team. Sometimes, you need a distraction to take the heat off of Team B to do their stealth-and-subterfuge in another place. While being the Distraction Team tends to be highly dangerous(I think Big Game Hunters probably have it safer, heh), it IS a good use of teams who like to be loud. Eventually Johnsons might hear that this team is really good at blasting holes in walls and such and they hire them to take the heat off of the more quiet teams they send to the same people, in a different area, where the real job has to go down. Granted, this one the PCs aren't necessarily respected in, but it IS a job, and it'll probably pay pretty well.


Gang Members. This can run the gamut of power; from the Ancients down to a third-tier gutter gang to anything in between, but gang campaigns make perfect instances to be nice and loud. You might not have as much technical heavy ordnance(I mean, gangers can get it), but you can at least be pretty loud and Pink Mohawk. (Ancients are an example of a gang who can get some bigger stuff.) I mean some of the classic artwork portrays pretty crazy gang fights happening.


These are only five examples; but use your imagination, of course! You can also combine these('Mercenaries' plus 'Big Game Hunters' could have the team be a crack team hired to take down the rampaging, mutant Juggernaut in the center of Denver, Godzilla style one job and to demolish something the next.)


As for some more 'Pink Mohawk' tips:


-I highly suggest you just ditch Availability rules for these and let anything go. Some of the more Big Loud Fun stuff tends to be above the legal limits for the start(unless you're playing SR2, then just don't use the optional rule.) I mean our table never uses these anyway, but if yours does, for this type of campaign, I suggest waiving it or at least upping it several levels.

-Allow Hand of God to be used more than once; I'd say even three times. IMO, Pink Mohawk has lots in common with crazy action flicks where the protagonists survive odds many times over; this can be symbolized here. I wouldn't make it unlimited, of course, but three times instead of once I feel might give the campaign more of an 'Action Movie' feel.

-Definitely don't penalize co-lateral damage as much in this one. I mean the runners are being hired to blow stuff up most of the time, after all. That being said, loss of life is something that you'll have to talk over; are you going for Rambo or the Expendables, the A-Team, or something in between(where perhaps very bad people are taken out, but others aren't.)


--


This is again by no means an exhaustive list; but its something to perhaps get you started. Hope this helps out some folks who are curious to get a campaign like this going!

I should have some more fiction up soon that I'm tinkering with, as well!

SR3 Chargen Advice: Hermetic Mages

So I decided to kick this little series off with Hermetic Mages.

I'll try to keep this somewhat simplified, but these may get a little in depth.

For starters: Priority is a given, since you either take Magic A or B, so that's settled. If you take Magic A, you're full. B you're a Conjurer, Sorcerer, or Elementalist. If you're an elementalist, you pick an element and you can cast spells and summon spirits associated with that element; Earth=Manipulation, Air=Detection, Fire=Combat, and Water=Illusion. (There is no Health Elemental. Kinda sucks.) Elementalists may NOT astrally project in 3e-in 2e they were actually able to(the more you know!) All aspected magicians may astrally perceive as normal(back in 2e, Sorcs/Conjurers could not even perceive. Also the more you know!)

Your Spell Points(used for purchasing spells, spirits, and binding foci) are tied to your Magic priority these days, and not Resources(though I'll get to that), like they used to be.


Metatype:

Any metatype can make a good magician in this. Yes, even Orks/Trolls, with their mental minuses. Neither takes a minus to Willpower, which is the major Drain stat. Troll lower Charisma might affect their conjuring somewhat(keep in mind if your GM uses Edges/Flaws, a Bonus Attribute Point to increase your Charisma max can work, and thanks to Exceptional Attribute, you can increase an attribute up to twice through Edges. It's minmaxy, but for those who really want that awesome Troll Conjurer-I can say as a GM I'd welcome something like this since you're stocking Edges to play 'against type.')

Elves make the best Conjurers(Charisma boost), and can make good combat mages too-their Charisma bonus means if you're not looking at Conjuring, you can drop that stat easier and boost everything else.

Dwarves are, IMO, pound for pound the 'best' mages from a mechanical standpoint. They have no stat minuses in 3e(they used to take a -1 Quickness in 2nd), they get a valuable Willpower bonus, and their Body/Strength bonuses gives them a bit of a sturdy build right out of the gate without having to devote a lot of points to it. All they have to do is pay a bit extra for dwarf-modded gear. Plus they're Priority D instead of the C Elves and Trolls are, if you're playing via Priority. So if you're doing absolute min-maxing, IMO, you can't go wrong with a Dwarf.

Of course, good ol' Humans don't have to give up the extra Priority, and they earn Karma pool faster, barring houserules.

At the end of the day, play what you'd like! I'd say that Metatype choice is going to affect your Priority picks a little bit, as you'll see in the next(a Troll will likely need a hefty helping of Attributes to get past the minuses, even though they don't need to devote much to Physical, even for a combat mage.)


Priorities:

IMHO-you can probably stand to go light on the Skills when it comes to Hermetic mage priority. Using the 3e Archetype of the Troll Combat Mage, he gets by with only 27 points, and he not only has two max Magic skills, but a very good Edged Weapons, some etiquette, intimidation and even a gun. He's specialized, but not one-trick.

Different combos of course might require different priorities: a face/mage will need more skills, IMO, than a combat mage(and will likely be a little more toward Conjuring if they're aspected.)

(Magical Theory is no longer an Active Skill in 3e like 2e-it's Knowledge.)

If your GM is using Point Buy or BeCKS, you can probably afford to go slightly lighter on the skill aspect. Take what you need, of course.

Attributes it depends, but I like to go higher here. With Trolls, those B attributes come in very handy. Elves too, though elves can get by with the 24 fairly well if necessary. Dwarves and Orks can get by with 24 rather easily, saving the B for Resources.

Resources for a Hermetic mage can trend higher. Their gear is more expensive than a shaman's(foci all costs the same, but Elemental Conjuring materials are 1k nuyen per level, and their libraries are Rating x Rating x 1000...and you need these for both Sorcery and Conjuring. Keep in mind you can buy extra spell points at 25k nuyen per point...so taking Resources B isn't always a bad plan. Combat Mages can rock lower resources, if you don't mind going a little lighter on the gear and getting it in game to solidify your Attributes. And yes, you can play a *very* pimped Sorcerer with max Resources.


Attributes:

Willpower is your Drain stat. Intelligence, Will and your Magic Attribute are your Spell Pool, and your Charisma affects your damage if fighting in astral space(fully projecting, that is.) Charisma is your Conjuring stat.

As always, a good Body helps. If you're, say, a Sorcerer, you can, if you want, ditch Charisma for a heftier Strength for bigger guns/a non monowhip melee weapon. 27 Attributes lets you go pretty balanced, regardless. Basically I'd focus on Will, Int, and Body/Quickness and use Str/Cha as appropriate for the character.


Skills:

Magical attributes are Sorcery, Conjuring, Enchanting, and Aura Reading. The first two are probably your big focus. You can specialize; in things like Spellcasting(for Sorcery-this isn't a bad pick since Ritual Sorcery is more a specific character thing), or spirit types for Conjuring. Enchanting offers Artificing and Alchemy(the rules in Magic in the Shadows.) Aura Reading is for Astral work.

Astral Combat is actually a specialization of some various Melee combat, too(for weapons, you need a focus for this.)

Remembering back in the first part with basic skills that are good for everyone-you'll find magicians aren't necessarily too reliant on a ton of skills. Unless you want to play SuperMage and go for ALL of the magical skills-if you want to go 'basic' with just Sorcery and Conjuring, you will likely have enough points to make a pretty well rounded character or a variety of mage types, from kung-fu mages to melee mages to face/mages to gun mages to getaway driver mages(I wouldn't install a VCR though.)

Knowledge skill wise, Magic(which is basically also these days involving Magical Theory), Spell Design, and Talismongering are all magical-based skills to look into. Crafting skills associated with things if you want to really make your own foci helps. Otherwise, as always, Knowledge skills are very open.


Gear:

Fetishes if you have fetish-limited spells, foci of sorts help as well. Power Foci are the most powerful(but also most expensive). Spell Category Foci help some more specialized mages(particularly Elementalists, since they can only cast spells from a category.) Spirit Foci are good for Conjurers.

Hermetics need libraries, as said, though you can always get these in game. Also see back in part 1 for the 'general list' which is good for any archetype.


'Ware:

Mages and 'ware go together less in 3e than in the later years. It's generally heavier on your system, and they lose magic from both cyber and bio(though the bio loss isn't 'true' magic loss-it just 'dampens' it.) If you want to go 'cybermage'-I suggest Sorcerer with high Resources so you can buy into a Power Focus to offset the loss. Having a small amount of cyber/bio isn't TOO bad, though(I'd choose one or the other)-decent picks for cyber are boosted reflexes, cybereyes(with Optical vision mag if you get it-mages need natural magnification to cast spells through it), or a humble datajack. Bioware wise, the Enhanced Articulation and/or Cerebral Booster is nice(a L1 Enhanced and L1 Booster is 1 Bio Index.)

It's tough to deal with 'ware if you have anything less than Priority B Resources, however. Make it a character-specific thing rather than a 'go-to.'


Character Building Bits(Edges/Flaws, Contacts, etc):

I'm including this for fun. This is going to be a section for people who want a little advice for some extra 'personal' oomph to the characters.

If you're using Edges and Flaws, there are some neat little ones, like Astral Impressions(you're easier to find in the Astral, you can make this up for background reasons), Focused Concentration(makes it easier to sustain spells)-you can be pretty creative here and you don't even need to take Magical edges/flaws. Phobias, allergies or whatnot work totally fine for a mage.

Also look into some of the different 'belief systems' in Magic in the Shadows; are you into Black Magic, Norse Magic, or what? Shamans might have totems but hermetics can have things they believe as well(generally they have 'Hermetic magic is like the science of magic', but they can be religious or whatnot too.)

As for Contacts, keep a Talismonger in mind for magical goodies! After that it's pretty much free game.

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So that should cover most of the basics when it comes to creating a Hermetic mage. Again, I tried to keep this somewhat compact. If folks have questions or additions feel free to ask/poke me about them!

Adramelek Art, Part 2!

So once again I got some amazeballs art done by the awesome https://twitter.com/azazaz246642https://twitter.com/azazaz246642 !Thanks yet again.

This is an awesome piece depicting him in a sort of 'victorious' stance-maybe holding his fist up to signal the gang that he did his duty. As we see he's probably crunched a few skulls wherever he was...well, he cleans up only the worst of the worst so it's okay. >:D

Nice unhinged grin, scary eyes, creepy looking blood and lovely looking accessories. Love this so much! 

As folks may have seen I've done another story, Night Shift! Hope you enjoy!

3e Chargen Basics, Part 1

Well, if new editions have these, then maybe old should do!

Like any edition, character creation has its pitfalls, though IMHO, there's a lot less-on average-in 3e than there is in newer editions. A few reasons(not an extensive list):

-No Perception skill to remember. I dunno how many times I've seen people build and forget this. (Note: on the odd event that I DO run 5e-which I don't think I've done since the year it came out, maybe a few months later-I have ditched the skill and just make you roll Intuition and Logic, like the old days. Yes, this gives people a couple of extra skill points. No, I have no issue with this.) In 3e, it was an Intelligence roll vs. a particular TN determined by the GM/situations. The Perceptive Edge gave you a -1. Bits of 'ware could lower the TN or add extra dice, depending.

-Con was rolled up into Negotiations. In most games-even a little more mohawk-based ones-being able to fumble a quick lie is kinda nice to do. All you needed to do was plug 2 points into Negotiation, or even specialize for 1(3), and 3 dice is actually nice.

-Palming was rolled into Stealth.

-Glitching wasn't a thing in most cases; there were a couple edge cases(like a failed Monowhip roll) that it could come in. If you rolled a ton of 1's you could fail horribly(GM discretion) but generally speaking you weren't worrying about 'small uneven die pools.'

-The fact that skills stood on their own, and the average TN being 4, meant you could grab like a couple of points in some of those other skills and call it a day. You didn't need to push for very high numbers and die pools.

-No worrying about odd/even numbered Will/Body because everyone had 10 boxes to a condition monitor, end of story.

-In 3e, Initiative was less end all be all than the earlier(or 5e). You could get away with 2 dice and a decent Reaction as a combat character due to how things worked, particularly in melee. Sure, higher Initiative was great(particularly for a gunner), but it was less 'pushed' in those days, where now if you're not sporting 3d6 as combat, it's sorta like the older days(apparently.)


Now there were a few pitfalls, of course:


-Riggers and Deckers could run into some issues assembling their gear.

-Mages could sometimes run into bits(despite being extremely powerful.)

-Speaking of magic, unless there's a specific character reason, Willpowers of over 3 were highly desirable, because that was the TN a mage had to roll against to fry you with a Mana spell. (Body was for Power-based spells, and it was probably desirable to aim for a 4 there too if you could. Low Willpower could be quite painful.

-Like any game with a lot of crunch, a few things could get a little overwhelming.

-Because Skill cost was determined on your Attributes(raising a skill past an attribute cost 2 for 1), players could end up spending too much on skills when they wouldn't have had to if they had just, say, upped a particular attribute by 1 more point.


With that said:


Basic Chargen Advice


Some of this will vary depending on chargen system used. I'll base this mainly on Priority since it's the main way, but I'll drop tidbits for point-buy and BeCKS as well.

1. If you're going Rigger or Decker, you're highly suggested to look at Priority A Resources. Decker, certainly. Rigger, you'll be the most comfortable. Both archetypes need some expensive gear(cyberdecks, vehicles, drones, programs, other bits), and Riggers need some sort of costly 'ware as well(VCRs are hefty in Essence cost, and if you can get them Alphaware, it does wonders.) Deckers need less in terms of 'ware but there are certain bits that are wonderful for them, and given you'll be pushing a lot of nuyen for a deck and programs, you'll want as much cred as you can do mess with. (Street campaigns notwithstanding, of course.)

2. Samurai are tricky when it comes to nuyen. You'll probably find yourself, if you want bioware, needing more than 400k(once you add in lifestyle, weapons, ammo, armor, gear, and maybe a vehicle), but sometimes 1,000,000 is too much. This is where point-buy or BeCKS win out; you get the 650k price point or fully customizable nuyen. That said, the 'samurai' archetype can run a rather wide gamut of 'types'-razorboys can get away more with the 400k since they tend to basically go spurs, reflexes, and some light muscle augments. A typical Sam is probably better sitting at the million in Priority(or 650k+). As someone who plays sams a lot, I've had them go from 400k to around 800k, depending on how much bioware I get.

3. Spellslingers can be made either way; you can go low Resources, higher on the Skills/Attributes and get your foci and libraries and stuff in-game(Hermetics have a higher cost), or you can pump Resources and use them to get foci, extra spell points(25k/point, yes, they're expensive, Sorcerers can make out pretty insane here). Both ways are perfectly viable. Even min-maxing this can be tough, since Attributes and Skills are tougher to raise in game than the start(unless you're doing BeCKS), but foci and the like you'll have to go through talismongers to get and bonding foci costs Karma as well. I'd just make the 'character call.' My own personal preference is to go richer for Hermetics and lower-Resources for Shamans.

4. Out of all the attributes, Body, Quickness, Intelligence, and Willpower are good for any and all archetypes. Strength and Charisma are the two more 'specialty' stats that fall to more limited archetypes. You're free of course to make lots of 'hybrid' characters if you take the appropriate steps(and they work quite nicely in 3e!) 3e, for the first 3 Priorities, is fairly kind with the attribute points, so you probably won't have to 'dump' anything unless you're doing a very specific specialty build(like the Magic-Using Dwarf who is resistant to a lot of magic. Or, hell, what I did with Adramelek boosting his Strength.)

You can almost never go wrong with a good Body and Willpower for any build.

5. That being said, throwing 1's in stats should be a very 'character centric' thing, IMO. I mean, an actual 1. Playing a Dwarf with 3 Strength might make him a low-end Dwarf, but he's still as strong as an average human. He's not sickly. (I imagine a sickly Dwarf, Ork, or Troll would be even weaker than that-the Infirm flaw would actually make this possible.) A 3 Charisma Elf is a little surly for an elf maybe, or not as 'magnetic', but he's still, again, on par with a typical Human or Dwarf or something. I'm not saying don't use 1's-I'm saying use them for specific character bits. Otherwise try to stick to 2's for your 'lower stats'.

6. Skill-wise, for a regular powered game(ie; not a street/ganger level game), I like to have a primary skill at 6 and a couple of others at 4-6. After that you can divvy up depending on skill points. For people coming from more recent editions, you often don't need the bigger die pools, since it's the Target Number you're looking at, and the average TN in SR3 is 4(and can be adjusted up or down, making things harder or easier.)

Good skills for any archetype to take 2-3 points in: A ranged weapon(Pistols is good since it opens up everything from tasers to heavy pistols, which are actually quite dangerous in this), Computer(back in these days, a point or two here is quite common for almost anyone), Negotiation. For a good melee backup, Clubs(so you can have Stun Baton access), or Unarmed(you can get shock gloves if you're of more moderate Strength.) Stealth and Biotech(First Aid) are also nice if you have a couple of points left from taking skills at a higher priority, though you can usually get away with defaulting to a decent Quickness with Stealth(since most Stealth is an open test.) I didn't list Etiquette since that's common for any build to take.

Naturally this is easier or harder depending on your skill priority. Even if you're at the last 2 priorities(D or E), you can usually afford a few points to throw around. The beauty with SR3 is that most archetypes get their main bit covered in 2-4 skills. A great example is the Troll Combat Mage sample character; his skill points are 27, and he's maxed out on his Sorcery and Conjuring, while still having an Etiquette skill, a melee skill, a gun skill, and Intimidation to boot. Nothing fancy, but he's not a one-trick pony and he covers decent ground.

7. Cyberware and Bioware. Some 'all-purpose' 'ware for any archetype includes(you do not HAVE to buy these, mind you, but they're nice to have if someone asks 'What is good all purpose cyberware'):

-Datajack. It's a wired world, and datajacks allow you to access a lot of stuff. 1k for a regular version.

-Knowsoft Link. This enables you to load Linguasofts and Knowsofts(you need Skillwires for Activesofts). Both of these are inexpensive(the softs themselves can run money; average level 3 soft is about 2700 a pop.) Also 1k for a standard.

-Smartlink. Even if you're a non combatant, a smartlink(not an eye mod these days but more of a full piece of headware and it runs .5 essence), can help you cover yourself very efficiently in a firefight. That -2 to the TN is wonderful; it reduces short range TNs to 2, medium to 3, and long to 4(which is the average TN!) This is big and it allows someone with 3-4 points in a backup firearms skill to be legitimately deadly with their piece(and it even enables smaller arms like light pistols, especially in conjunction with good ammo, to be a little more dangerous) It's only 2500 for a Level 1.

-Cybereyes. In these days, cybereyes were nice. They were only .2 essence(they didn't come in levels), and instead of capacity, they allowed .5 essence of modifications for free, making them a much better deal than now(where they take capacity, and you end up saving Essence a lot of times just getting eye mods unless you literally buy everything on the list.) A standard cybereye loadout would be the eyes, with low-light, thermographic, a display link, and flare compensation. Standard wise this would come to a total of .3 Essence(.2 for the eyes, .1 since there are .6 worth of mods), and it runs a total of 14k. If you get Alphaware, double this cost but it's only .16 Essence total(since the eye mods won't 'run over'.) An Image Link runs 600 more nuyen and a base .2 essence cost, but it enables images instead of just the text of the Display Link.

This standard 'Any-Archetype Cyberware Loadout' will run 18,500 and 1.1 Essence. Alphaware doubles this cost, but will lower the Essence cost to under 1.

As for Bioware, there are two 'all purpose' pieces that stand out for any archetype. Bioware, mind you, is more expensive than Cyberware, so probably won't be taken unless you're packing Resources B+, but you can keep this in mind:

Enhanced Articulation: Probably the 'Holy Grail'(or unholy, depending on your outlook) of bioware in these days. It adds one die to any skill that involves movement or precision. This means combat, athletics, stealth, and even B/R skills. Oh yeah, it gives +1 Reaction too. At 40k and .6 Bio Index I can't think of another piece of 'ware that's legit more bang for the buck. (I actually think this is better in 3e than the Suprathyroid, which I'll get to later. I think they're close, mind you.)

Mnemonic Enhancer: Another hated-by-GMs(okay, I don't care, but some do), loved by players piece of Bioware, this is not a combat or even action related piece, but helps with thinking and learning. At 15,000 nuyen and .2 Bio Index per level, it gives +1 die for Memory and Language Tests, and -1 Karma per level of learning new skills. Not just knowledge/language skills, mind you, but all skills. At level 2 and 3, you could also default to INT for Knowledge Skills at only +3 instead of +4, which was a nice bonus. At level 1, you got a +1 die to all Knowledge skills.

Both of these, maxed out, will run 100k and 1.2 Bio Index, but you could spend it worse.

This entire 'Any Archetype' package, non Alphaware or cultured, will cost 118,500 nuyen, 1.1 essence, and 1.2 Bio Index. Basically, if you're new, not playing a spellcaster, and are just asking 'What can I get that will help me no matter what I do almost', this is it.

As an aside, you can lower Bio Index cost, but the cost of culturing non cultured Bioware is a whopping 4x the cost, so you won't be doing it unless you're rich. It lowers the BI cost by 25%. You can't cultured already cultured bioware; it's already worked into the cost.

I suppose I couldn't get through this section without mentioning the Suprathyroid Gland. As the holy spirit to the father and the son above(or unholy, again, depending on your outlook), this has a hefty bio index cost of 1.4 and runs 50,000. It grants +1 to Body, Quickness, Strength, and Reaction. It's one of the best pieces, yes. (Increases to Quickness can ALSO increase regular Reaction.) It's downside is that you need to pay +40% for Lifestyle costs(which can actually add up; so your 5k/month Middle lifestyle becomes 7,000 a month, and if you happen to be sporting a high, you're paying 14,000 a month. Finally, it's not compatible with a Metabolic Arrester, which is actually a pretty nice piece for front-line types, so you need to pick stats or 'less chance of bleeding out if brought to D damage.'

8. Armor. Basically a Secure Jacket or Secure Long Coat will take care of most everyday armor needs for any archetype, and for an extra 250, add forearm guards for an extra point of Impact armor. The Jacket is 5 Ballistic and 3 Impact, and the Long Coat is 4 Ballistic and 2 Impact, but adds 50% to the Concealability of any item underneath of it.

Form-fitting body armor is also a nice bonus to grab. It goes with armor stacking rules in terms of halving the lower piece but doesn't count against any stats for layering. Also nice for any archetype.

A Security Helmet is nice but you will need GM approval for that given it's Availability. I can't understand why there is no bit of head armor for a lower Availability in SR3 but there you go.

9. Gear. For an all-purpose set of gear, good again for any archetype(I'll just go ahead and list everything including armor and such, note this isn't exhaustive or 100% required):

1 Firearm with concealable holster, ammo and spare clips(cost varies)
1 Melee Weapon(if applicable skill)(cost varies)
Armor of choice + forearm guards(cost varies but probably between 900-1100)
Pocket Secretary(2,000: Note if Resources E this is a bit stiff)
Phone of choice(between 50-150)
Pager(10)
2-5 50-100 nuyen certified credsticks for bribes, emergency funds etc
1 month of lifestyle of choice(from free to 100,000)
A Squatter lifestyle bolthole(100/month)
Forged Credstick(R1 to 6, which costs from 1,000 to 30,000)
Knife
Pocket Flashlight
Medkit
Trauma Patch
Survival Kit
Chemsuit(200 nuyen per rating up to 6 at chargen, nice for emergencies and even rainy days)
Respirator


A note on Forged Credsticks:

Back in the day, there was no constant wireless reading of your credsticks, so these were less vital to have at high levels. A lot of common places only have low level readers(talking Stuffer Shacks and the like, and I'll go as far as to say I houserule that buying Nukit burritos or BucketBurgers can be done via certified cred since these places just want your money). Due to this you weren't forced to keep them on hand(and indeed, the way SINs worked back in the day, you just basically said 'yeah, I have a SIN' or whatever to your GM, there was no flaw.) So you could go buy legal crap easily. Forged Credsticks are nice for the prudent, and it was cool to keep something on hand(hence why its on the list), but unlike today where it's 'Get a R4 Fake ID at all times', back then it was more 'If you have a SIN and want to protect it somewhat, look into one of these.' They are fairly popular with Faces, however, which I do suggest to get a couple of them at decent ratings.

That basically takes care of Part 1! In a second part, if folks want to see it, I'll cover more Character specific suggestions.

Some Quality to Edge/Flaw Conversions

One of the bits in the later editions I liked was that there was a few really cool Qualities that didn't show up in 2e or 3e. While I don't like how they feel a bit too 'necessary' nowadays, I do like some of the flavor they offer.

I actually think converting a few of them to SR3 would be possible, while still keeping the older days to the 'Edges and Flaws feel more like bonus bits than requirements' methods. I feel this will work out fine, given the overall limitations of numbers(I find that it's much easier to 'cap off' in the old days than the new days, where people can take stacks of 3-5 point Edges and such; most of the time it's difficult to take 'stacks' of Edges. I mean even finding like five 1 point Edges that fit your character can sometimes be difficult(I mean it could work, but it would be a pretty limited pile).

Some qualities would need heavier reworking than others-like Tough as Nails. Will to Live handles overflow, and Toughness Body dice; in the old days, the condition monitors never changed; not even for Great Dragons. It could, perhaps, be changed, but it might be changed to one level, become a 4 point Edge, and state that you get a -1 TN to all Damage Codes. Yes, that's expensive but that's also pretty damned huge. A Troll with 9 Body(+ the 1 Dermal Armor bonus die) would be able to probably shrug off a lot. I'm not sure if I'd even want to put it in like this(I'm just using this as an example), but I would want to playtest this one fairly well before putting it in. I think I'd personally be content to leave SR3 alone with just Will to Live and Toughness.

Some I feel pop over easy. 'School of Hard Knocks' etc, would just act like Collect/Tech School, in SR3(which instead of spending points 1 for 2 you defaulted at less, and since you could stack them, they could be quite useful to be able to default to either Academic or Background knowledge skills at only +1 TN. Bringing in this would allow defaulting to Street at +1.)

Some conversions wouldn't work too well due to 'the times'-Sensory Overload Syndrome is something caused heavily by wireless stuff, so in a wired world it wouldn't really have a home.

Others need some work; usually the old Composure tests were just Willpower tests, but they only ever needed a success or two(not too many 3 or 4 threshold tests.) That being said, the TN was typically 4-6(6 being on the high end.)

SINner in those days wouldn't fit so much; particularly the way we play(where you just up and say at the start if you want one.) Back in the days when you didn't need to constantly broadcast it, having one was less of a disadvantage. Others like Hawk Eye would have to be drastically increased; shifting from Medium to Short would be HUGE for like a 1 point Edge. Plus Perceptive already lowers TNs by -1 and it's a 3 point Edge. (TN shifting is sort of a big deal in the old days; it's worth much more than adding or subtracting a die.)

Signature I'm surprised never made it in in the first place, that seems to be a solid -2 point Flaw that grants - to target numbers for tracking in regards to a certain act; given SR3 has a different way of tracking things like street cred, it will need some adjustment. Probably some sort of easier TNs for things like Memory Tests, Intelligence and/or Knowledge Checks IRT the person. A -2 feels about right for 2 points.

Restricted Gear in SR3 would probably be no more than a 1 point Edge in those days. The reason being is that there just isn't a lot that you'd want or need to buy with it. We never play with Availability at chargen as folks know, adoping the 'Take stuff that works for your concept' POV, but even then there is, when it comes down to it, very little that really shoots past it. Some of the stuff you can barely afford(high level Skillwires and Damage Compensators), some stuff is of limited use in a game where it would matter(some of the heavy weapons-some are perfectly legal at chargen anyway), and some is just extremely niche(Thermosense Organs?) 

I could see the most popular items with this being the Monowhip, APDS ammo, Tailored Pheremones, or one of the higher-level cyberdecks. Those are probably the big four. 

As an interesting note-between 3e and 5e, Vindictive and Combat Monster 'swapped costs'. In 3e, Combat Monster is a 1 point Flaw, while Vindictive is 2. In 5, Vindictive is a 5 point NQ, CM is a 10. 

Vendetta would probably fit as a 1 or 2 point Flaw, requiring a Willpower(4) test with 2 hits or maybe a (6) test with 1. If it's the latter, maybe 1 point. It's a 7 point NQ in SR5. Paranoia(7 point NQ) could be converted to a 1 or 2 point Flaw that gives a +1 to all Social tests for Contacts of less than level 2. (TNs are sort of a big deal, again, so this could be a 2 point Flaw.) 

Emotional Attachment could actually be worse in SR3 if it had the -1 TN adjustment for six months. For it to stay a 1 point Flaw, I'd argue that a +1 TN for a month or two at best; it would need at least a 2 point Flaw to be for six months, unless the disadvantage was changed. (Despite TNs being powerful, I'm hesitant to add or subtract dice, since in SR3 that's generally limited to ways of doing things.) This one would need some heavier playstesting too, IMO. (Most would need some measure of playtesting I feel, but some more than others, and I think some-like the Knowledge skill based ones-could be dropped in relatively as is.) Driven could make a nice 1 point flaw(I would test it making a Willpower(6) test, or a Willpower(4) with 2 successes needed.)  

(I'm also a big fan of some of the Edges and Flaws the Twilightrun website has. I'd have taken Large for both Downfall and Adramelek in a heartbeat. And I fragging love Weirdness Magnet.) 

Anyway just throwing a few basic ideas out. I might sit down and try to hack these out a little more 'official' for the houserule section soon. (I don't think I WANT to convert all of them, though. Again, I like SR2/3's slightly more compact list. I just think a few of them are really cool.) 

Little Places And Stuff

Here's some more worldbuilding!


The Devil's Den


The Devil's Den is a seedy heavy metal bar in Puyallup, not too far from Tarislar. The beer is strong, and the biggest known dude is a bartender named Ed-a human, perhaps in his late thirties or so-who resembles a thrash metaller whose ear is toward the ground often, and he sometimes has some rather nice tip-offs. (He's not a fixer, but he's part of a network that can sometimes put people in contact who are looking for jobs, or fixers themselves. He does know Spanky, the two being bartenders who sometimes show up at beer conventions.)  Ed chain smokes, has frizzy brown, long hair with a couple of grays lying around, a wiry but hard build(while you wouldn't call him a warrior or anything, more than one drunk has been tossed out onto the pavement by him, and he keeps a loaded Ruger under the bar), and dresses in too-tight jeans, sneakers, and ripped up t-shirts. Ed likes denim jackets when it gets cold. The Devil's Den specializes in thrash metal(including classic stuff from the old days), mostly cheaper beer and alcohol, greasy hot wings and Nukit burritos for bar food. It's metahuman friendly. You can go there with a certified credstick with a little on it and get trashed on the cheap if you don't mind the more stomach-churning stuff.


Torque


Torque is a bar on the outskirts of Redmond, seemingly a run-of-the-mill seedy bar with a theme of cars and driving, hence the name. However, several stories below ground, in a converted garage, it holds a more violent secret; a bloodsport pit is under here. Mostly not to the death actually(though they have their 'to the death' main attractions a couple times a week, most of these are high paying and high stakes and often end up in other bloodshed in the audience from losers), but definitely to the maiming. Cyber, bio, whatever is game(they occasionally have a mundane night a couple times a month-those fights tend to last longer and actually rake in some decent nuyen), and even occasionally a 'Man vs. Beast' night where they bring in a couple of hellhounds or something. (Their current hellhounds, Harker and Helsing, are undefeated; these nights are not regular, however. Once they even had a Greater Wolverine but after it killed the opponent and ripped up three spectators they tranq'd it, let it loose somewhere in the wilderness and never spoke of it again. It had made them too much money to kill without ceremony.)

Downfall, the giant goth elven adept who shows up in a lot of the fiction I do(and who IS a PC or an NPC depending if I'm running or GMing-I don't GMPC), is a regular fighter here and he basically kept himself afloat after he exiled himself from Tir with money earned from this place.

Torque sells your run of the mill crappy beer and bar food, with the occasional load of slightly better quality stuff that makes it in.


Some More House Rules


The Stuffer Shack Doesn't Give a Drek About Your ID

No, seriously. I don't care if it's a subsidary of Aztechnology. You can buy a Nukit burrito with a certified credstick. So long as it's real cred, they'll take it. They just want your money. They're not going to background check you for buying stuffers. If you want to run the type of game that ID checks you for using the toilet that's fine but I sorta prefer a looser method, so I started basically using the Twilightrun website's tips(or some of them) in my games. Big fake IDs are more needed for stuff like better lifestyle purchases and so on. Middle you'll probably want to run at least a 4, unless you get away with a Middle lifestyle in a slightly shabbier part of town(this IS possible, but remember the security things.) Or perhaps there's that big ol' Snohomish house that the murders happened in that might be haunted and it's technically middle but we just want to unload it.

High+ you'll definitely want to sport a hefty fake ID to get unless you tell me your character is using a legit SIN(which is fine), but of course be careful with that.

Stuff you need some sort of ID for: Buying weapons(not black market, of course), buying property Middle or above lifestyle(Low...sometimes, if it's in a good neighborhood but just like an unfurnished loft or something, GM discretion), flying legally, buying legal vehicles, etc.

Stuff you can get away with generic certified cred for: Low class tube riding(First-class needs an ID), Stuffer Shack, McHughs, Bucket-Burgers, Soybucks, and others of that ilk.

Generally, forged credsticks are a little more useful in these days because of how checking worked. It was a simple test of Credstick vs. Reader. Rating 4-5 systems are not stuff you run into without going to banks or law enforcement, or other places like that(using Sprawl Sites as the old reference point for this.) Most of the time, you'd be running into 1-3 rated system. I mean, if you can afford a nice level one by all means do it(R5's run about 25k in SR3, R4 is 16k, R3 is 9k, R2 is 4k and R1 1k), but keeping an R1/R2 and certified cred on hand should be enough for menial stuff. I personally suggest an R3 for basic use if you can afford it(if you rock 60k or higher depending on the character this should be well doable. Priority wise this would be about Priority C.) Get an R4 or 5 if you plan on doing anything a little bigger.


Split Dice Dual-Wielding


Inspired a couple of decades ago by Blackjack(great site), I had started using that then and still do.

For one, I cut out the Ambidexterity edge. It's superfluous with this.

So the way this works is this, first starting for melee:

If someone wants to attack twice with two weapons, they simply split their pool between the two weapons as they see fit. Splits are done after adding any bonus dice(personalized weapons, Enhanced Articulation, reflex recorders) and combat pool. You can give as many dice to one hand as you want; this can be used strategically, for example, to keep a mook off of your ass while you're trying to lay down pain on someone else.

Or you could choose to attack one person twice. Now why do this? You could make a choice; you could choose to take a couple of decent stabs at someone, or one good one. Now how Dodge was handled for this; the person rolled Dodge once. It was measured against the successes. If, say, they got 3 successes with one hand and only 1 with the other, and the rolled 2 dodge successes, the first attack would hit but the second would miss. But-this was a lucky roll. If your pool was split, say, five and five vs. a TN of 4, that means there's a much bigger chance of you not getting the necessary successes. If you rolled 1 hit on each hand, they'd have avoided it all. On the converse, if you rolled enough, they'd have to soak twice. Risk and reward, basically. You have a better chance of just taking one stab with one weapon(with a full 10 dice), but they'd only have to resist damage once. Pays your nuyen, takes your chances.

As for Reach, this can only be done with a Reach 1 weapon or less(yes, even for Trolls.) If you use two weapons of varying reach, you count the lesser reach when rolling IF it's against one target(since you need to close in.) Against two different targets, though, treat as normal(since you're holding the other one at bay with the longer reach.)


Example:


Asmodeus, lieutenant of Nocturnal Sin, is the token razorboy and is about to throw down with another cutter of a nearby gang, because the glam-rocker usually can't keep himself out of trouble. While Asmo usually has his spurs as his preferred method of slicin' and dicin', they agreed on a legit, West Side Story style knife fight. Asmo draws his Cougar Fineblade Long, a nice knife to use indeed. 

Right when the fight starts, the other guy realizes that Asmo is actually pretty damn dangerous from his movement(he's wired, has a cyberarm and a fair bit of 'ware), so another chummer jumps in. Well, no rules against that. Adramelek, Asmo's chummer, decides to toss Asmo his own Cougar Fineblade Long. This way, Asmo can stab at both of them. Asmo has an Edged Weapons of 4, Enhanced Articulation(he only has one cyberarm so he still gets the general full benefit), and a Combat Pool of 8(of which he can use up to four with.) Splitting is done after the pool, so after adding the combat pool, he has nine dice. He also has Wired Reflexes 2 so he goes first pretty easily. 

Asmo is no slouch at fighting(he also has an Unarmed Combat of 5 and a Cyber-Implant Weapons: Spurs of 5(7), so he can pretty quickly size up that his opponent's chummer is fairly scrubby. He can move somewhat, but he's no more than average(in fact, his Edged Weapons skill is only 2. He's more of a baseball bat guy.) Plus he can tell that he's unwired; he's a pretty bog standard gang member-he even only has a leather jacket(real, surprisingly, for 0/2 armor.) His actual opponent he can tell is pretty decent(though he can still tell he's better-I mean the drekhead did want to handicap Asmo by banning his spurs), and has slightly better armor; a secure jacket(3 Impact armor.) 

Asmo decides to split his die pool as follows; he's going to use six dice on the better opponent, and only three on the suckier one, more or less just to hold him off. Cougar Fineblades have no reach, but do Str+1 damage(9M, in his case, he's quite strong at 8, thanks to his cyberarm and muscle augmentation.) He's basically halfassing the other guy, mostly just trying to get him off-balance(read: blow his combat pool on dodging so he can't use it on attacking.) 

He rolls his two attacks: the first he gets 5,6,6,1,4,4; an incredibly lucky roll to be fair, 5 successes. On his second, he gets 5,5,2; still managing two. Asmo is doing really well. 

His opponents now get to roll Dodge(which is combat pool.) The better opponent has a Combat Pool of 7; he(well, the GM) decides to use four of it to try to save a little for a counterattack. He rolls 4,2,1 and 1, for only 1 success-but he still cuts down the successes by 1. He now gets to soak(vs. a TN of 5). His Body is a fairly spiffy 4, so he rolls those 4 dice(and the GM decides to use 2 of his remaining 3), for 1,5,1,4,5,3. He manages 2 successes, but Asmo still nets 2, which means he manages to shank the main guy for a Serious wound right off the bat. 

His chummer only has a Combat Pool of 5, being pretty bog standard. He uses three dice for a dodge attempt(saving 2 for an attack in SOME attempt to supplement it), and actually gets 2 hits! But...that's a tie, and they go in favor of the attacker. Nice try, but even Asmo's halfassed hand was enough to hit this guy. Still, he gets to roll soak; vs. a TN of 6, however, and his Body is only 3. the GM decides to use his last 2 combat pool dice in some attempt to help, and the 3,5,3,3,3 was not enough. He only takes a Moderate wound, though. 

The gangers realize they bit off too much and call it. They'll take the humiliation to live. Asmo takes their weapons and boots them in the ass out of there as they crawl off to find the gang's street doc they're shaking down for help. 

So as you see, there's a decent reason to use it vs. separate attackers, and it's cool to be able to actually pick how much you want to use. Against more equal opponents, someone might choose to equalize their dice.

For a quick run to use the 2 weapons on 1 person for:

After the fight, a rando runs in on Asmo, because he's drunk, pissed, chipped out, or some combination of the bunch. He's an ork, so probably has decent body(6, so actually average for an ork, but it's still tough.) He's also wearing a real leather jacket(0/2 armor.) He has a combat pool of 5(which Asmo doesn't know of course since combat pool doesn't exist in the world.) 

Asmo can now decide; attack once or twice. Attacking once with his all, or two swings. We'll do two examples of both. 

Attacking once with nine dice(a nice amount), vs. a TN of 4, Asmo gets 4,1,3,4,1,6,3,1,4, for a total of  4 successes. The GM decides to try to dodge with all of the combat pool to see if he can get lucky. 1,2,6,4,6. Well he doesn't dodge completely but he negates 3 of Asmo's successes. He now rolls his 6 dice vs. a TN of 6 to try to soak a little-6,1,5,4,2,6. Not enough to stage down(since Asmo still had a success), so he takes a Moderate wound for running in. 

Rewnding, Asmo decides instead to for two swings-using five dice with one hand and four with another. With his first roll, he gets 5,3,6,1 and 5, for a total of 4 hits(much luckier than before!) His second hand, he gets 6,4, 2, and 3, for 2 successes. 

The Ork only gets one Dodge roll. The GM decides to throw down all five combat pool dice again. He gets 6,3,2,6, and 1, for 2 successes. He doesn't dodge, as he tied, but he does negate successes from both hands(leaving 1 net 2 and 1 net 0.) He gets his resistance rolls, and this he gets to make two of. Had the GM saved combat pool, he could have added this to both. 2,1,6,4,3,3 for the first(negating 1 success), and 6,3,1,2,5,2 for the second. He can't stage down, and takes two moderate wounds, which add up to six boxes, and now he's Seriously wounded. 

Now this worked out great for Asmo this time, but had he have gotten unlucky with the successes(only, say, getting 1 each hand), the ork would have dodged completely. Even one more success would have negated the other hand and he'd have been net normal. 

I feel this rule makes dual-wielding more fun(and can make some opponents a little hairier, along with letting players feel badass sometimes ginsu-style), but it DOES mostly benefit more skilled players; someone with a Weapon skill of 3 is not likely going to want to dual-wield them. It also pretty much means that unless you're an Adept, you're going to want to put Combat Pool into the attack. And, of course, Reach 2+ weapons are out. I've seen it in action, and it's pretty sane all told, especially with how the Dodge rule works in SR3.

With Firearms, you can only have a Smartlink or Laser Sight count for one gun(yeah, even a laser sight is difficult to aim two of; you're focusing more on one thing.) You can only do this with Pistols, Machine Pistols or SMGs(yes, even Trolls.) The rule that uncompensated recoil for one gun counts toward the other sticks. The firearm rule is fairly good for laying down some basic cover fire with one hand while trying to plug someone with another. You can use different firing modes too; so you can use, say, your Ares Predator to try to mess someone up, and your Crusader MP to keep someone off your(or a teammate's) back.

Food Prices

For real food, I just rule of thumb that it's somewhere between 5-10 times the cost of soy. (A newer book has it at 5 to 20, but I like to imagine as time goes by more and more, that real stuff ends up getting even more scarce due to soy equivalents becoming even better; as in, there isn't as much of a need for real stuff.) So in the 2050s(or well, SR1 to 3 timeline), I like to have it around 5-10 times the cost.

Still Growing!

Having fun growing the site, just adding more bits and bobs in. Probably will do some more detailed write-ups especially now that I find myself possibly going to play Adramelek in an upcoming 3e game if all goes well. So he'll need his detailed backstory sketched up.

There are a few similarities between him and Downfall, which is sort of amusing since now I can kind of make them, in the side fiction I do, a bit of friendly rivals, not unlike, if one has ever played Warriors Orochi 3, Kojiro and Zhang He; only they're edgy cyberpunk equivalents. (They even sort of have the color thing going.)

In their case, they're two king-size troll strength elves who have some similarities of fighting style(while still being different-Downfall is more carefully and professionally trained and refined in how he fights and is about half a foot taller which gives him a bit of a different edge, Melek going more 'wild' even though he's clearly trained.) One was a noble who went heavily educated, one lived more of a slum life, one is magically active, the other is heavily cybered, they both tend to fight rather nastily though. I like the rivalry thing that can appear in the stories(and could even use one or the other as a contact. (And the more I look at them, the more I see Kojiro and Zhang He, heh. This was not intentional, but they say you do carry inspirations with you.)

They both even have significant others, though they're wildly different-Talon being the heavily cybered and wild, slightly grumpy elf that he is, Astarte being the chill(sometimes TOO chill) human mage.

This accidentally happened and it's pretty awesome since it's going to be very fun to write the gang in now with the main runner team(will give them a bit of an 'edge' too, since the runner team is actually, while they are louder than normal, fairly professional and well-schooled.)

Anyway, just giving a brief update, I should have the write-ups up soon! Been a bit busy lately with a lot of things, but I should be straightened out soon enough. Also been trying to fiddle with one of my own takes on 'Mohawks and Trenchcoats' for people who do still ask about what it means.

Neon & Chrome

So for this 'inktober', I decided, while I can't do it everyday, to try to write a few things this month. Hey, writing is still art!

Here's another short story; Neon & Chrome. It deals a bit with the Nocturnal Sin gang and two of its members, Melek and Astarte in particular, and just some fun goings on. It leans a little more slice of life as a lot of my stuff does.

(I'll probably do at least one 'run' oriented thing this month, or I'll try to!)

Got a commission done!

I managed to get a commission done of one of the characters! This one actually is a member of Nocturnal Sin, who I detailed in this previous post.  Adramelek, or Melek, the 'violence/anger' member of the lieutenants. The commission was done by the talented Sall here.


He's captured rather perfectly I'd say!

Now I feel obligated to do a little more writing on the gang...I think maybe I'll involve them in a story with the team this week! I really ought to do a little more there. Also sorry for the brief absence; got a little sick, ended up quite busy on top of it, but I'll get back to updating regularly soon I think!

I'll have this guy's character sheet up too. Figured he has a picture, might as well get all the numbers down. ;P

SR Worldbuilding: Original Gangs

So I'd like to, for fun, present a few gangs I use in my sorta 'world'-which is basically when I run at the table/write fanwork, but add and swap a couple of things. We run SR2/SR3 mixes, and use the 2050s-2060s timeline, and the ruleset of 3e, but these should be fairly slottable into a newer game if folks want to(you can keep the gangs as is and just drop them in as none of their backgrounds require them to actually have been around in that time, it's just where we run.)

I generally use the 'game world', but I do add some businesses, bars, restaurants, corps, NPCs, and gangs of course(which is part of the fun part of world building.)

In an attempt to make some 'different' sorts of gangs, I'm showing off three right now; they're actually a bit less 'street scum' type of gangs and hell if a lot of them are actually fairly educated and come from an interesting mix of backgrounds. A few of them escaped corps or possibly becoming indentured to a corp, others come from other walks of life.

Nocturnal Sin is a 'vigilante' type of gang who are loosely based on the theme of the 9 circles of hell, the Aesculpians are a 'medic gang', and the Technodrones are a gang of drone riggers. (Yeah, they run the gamut of 'edgy gang' sounding names, utilitarian names, and slightly silly names.)

Nocturnal Sin are a Superior gang, while the Aesculpians and the Technodrones are Equal. All of them have higher resources than normal(again, they're a little non-traditional, even if they have initiation rites, gang colors, turf and everything.) Nocturnal's writeup is the longest, due to the amount of lieutenants(since it covers the wide range of 'circles of hell sins.')

So feel free to enjoy(they are probably not to everyone's cup of tea since they don't ascribe to typical gang stuff and I know some people prefer their gangs to be more 'street' types), but just wanted to share some stuff with folks!

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Nocturnal Sin

Gang Focus: A unique sort of vigilante gang, all of the lieutenants(and members, for that matter) are stained by some sort of wrong that they did, hence their entire theme being around the circles of Hell. Even though they do live a more 'rough' lifestyle nowadays, roughly half of the lieutenants had come from better means at one point. They realize what they do is dangerous, even deadly, but atonement comes with a price.

Their nicknames, or some aspect about them are often tied to their 'sin/layer' with a couple of exceptions; often taking a nickname of a demon or entity that is tied to said sins.

Leader:

Judas: A very handsome Troll in his late twenties who looks more like a nine-foot Jackie Estacado(picture reference here for those who don’t know/) with polished, even and curved horns, long, straight black hair and small tusks(besides natural looks he had work done in his previous time to better fit in with his previous job) who was actually a very respected and powerful enforcer in an organized crime family. Being the leader, his sin is, indeed, Treachery. Essentially being lured away by a rival family to betray his original one, being promised about anything he wanted. In any case, his betrayal resulted in the wiping out of the family; he carried this with him until he decided to try to 'atone' by destroying the family who he allowed to turn him. Besides still being hunted from time to time and carrying great personal guilt, he founded the gang after a time of simply going around and bashing heads in, waiting for a fight too much for him to take on.

As he met more of the future lieutenants-Eris, Adramelek, Charon and Beelzebub, they eventually worked together.

Judas is a moderately cybered 'samurai' like archetype-incredibly dangerous in combat- though he's probably the most balanced skill wise, being the leader, definitely charismatic and with skillfull leadership(and an imposing presence that keeps everyone in line.) He dresses fairly low key, wearing jeans that are loose enough to move in combat, heavy boots, tank tops that show his ink off and a heavy leather longcoat; a gang-colored bandanna is usually tied around his arm. His pale gray cybereyes seem to stare through people, and he cuts an incredibly dangerous figure.

He's usually armed with a Browning Max-Power and Ingram Smartgun for firearms and likes fighting unarmed(he has ceramic bone lacing, reflex boosters, muscle augmentation/toner and other bits), though he does have a customized and sleek combat axe he wears on his back, mostly used for chopping into vehicles since it is covered in Dikote. While he’s larger than average even for a troll, he’s more normally proportioned and moves a lot faster than one might think. He gets around on a customized Honda Viking. He often has a set of exercise balls in his hand which he enjoys moving about.

(I think it's pretty apparent where his street name came from.)

Lieutenants: 7

Eris: a human woman whose sin was Fraud/Deception. A Mystic Adept/Face, around 26, she was a rich corporate type who had no problems using her abilities to get ahead for money, prestige, and power. It came to a point one day when she ended up jealous of another woman's life, and used her social skills and magic to literally pretend to be this other woman until she was discovered, causing all sorts of havoc within the family, including the death of one of the members(not by her hand), virtually estranging them all the rest of the way.

Feeling remorse after she saw what she had wrought, she too decided to attempt to atone, and ended up meeting Judas by chance; he actually had fair social graces but the 'face and muscle' team quickly became good friends(some mistake them for a couple, but Judas prefers the company of men.) She now acts as the main 'dealer' of the gang, attempting to use her ability to blend in and deceive others more for the benefit of everyone(and to relieve such more malicious types of various possessions and cred, or to find out where something really bad is about to go down.) She also acts partially as the gang's fixer and fence(being the best at negotiating), and since she has spent time in both the street and corporate worlds.

She has taken great pains to hide her old identity and life, as she has a rather heavy amount of enemies from her past. Eris has a fairly 'street-chic' style nowadays; medium length blonde hair, green eyes, and sort of 'punk rock' style of makeup, and liking skirts, sneakers, tight tank tops and topped with an armor jacket for protection, though she can and will adjust clothing as her face job finds her necessary. As a Magician's Way adept(note: 3e rules), she has more points devoted to Magic than adept powers, and is initiated once(her adept powers are the face oriented ones, and her spells more Illusion and Manipulation based.)

Eris does not generally go 'on the field', but does have access to a couple of combat spells if need be, and a Browning Ultra-Power is her choice of sidearm. She has a penchant for higher-priced alcohol, even nowadays, and enjoys reading actual, paper books when she can get them(they’re much better than the virtual kind, in her opinion.)

(Eris was the Greek goddess of deception, strife, and discord.)

Adramelek: A seven-foot tall muscular elf around 27 years old, and despite some scars scattered around he is possibly one of the finest looking specimens of elf one can find. Even good-looking elf faces would offer to go under the knife to look half as good as him. His long, blood red hair and stark white skin gives him the appearance of a villain from an old manga or something, but his black-and-red cybereyes sort of show what lies inside; Violence, Anger, and Wrath. An ex-merc, his extremely violent tendencies-caused somewhat by cheap cyber poorly installed(his first unit tended to pawn off the crappy stuff on metas until they were found out and disbanded, Melek moved to a new unit; the bad wires replaced with better boosters but the damage was done) and partially just from him having anger issues-made him a target for constant reprisal; after deciding to mess about with drugs to allow him to last longer in combat after his team were pinned down without sleep for three days, he went on a drug-and sleep deprivation induced killing rampage in Chicago. He not only wiped out his unit, but actual bystanders as well. He was shot and left for dead by an unknown gunman.

Deciding to atone by channeling his violence toward actual evil, Melek is the other of the gang's major muscle; rumor has it he can go 50/50 arm-wrestling Judas. (A notable 'signature' are his heavy, super-weighted combat boots which he runs in like nothing; they also have inch-long, jagged and barbed Dikote-treated titanium spikes on the soles which cause immense, gory damage to his targets(Str+3M, Str+2L vs. hardened); someone was quoted to have said it looked like victims were 'mauled by a Piasma.'

He generally wears armored cargos tucked into them and form-fitting armor under those; he often goes shirtless if the weather permits, his dermal sheath(stark white, matching his skin tone and looking quite natural mostly save for a few silver streaks running through), long glove-guards and his bone lacing providing most of his upper body armor. He has an armored leather jacket if weather requires it or extra armor is needed.

Melek usually packs an Ares Predator and Franchi-Spas 22 for ranged(he does have skills with heavier ordinance if needed), but prefers unarmed. Besides the 'gang killing machine' who goes after some of the worst of the worst(serial killers, rapists, human traffickers and the like), he also is one of their main intimidators, and handles the ‘nastier’ interrogation. His bandanna is often tied around his lower face in battle or else worn on his upper arm. In his spare time, he can make astoundingly skillful pencil artwork with incredible levels of detail, which he enjoys to do to try to focus himself.

(Adramelek was a commander of hell, of infernal legions. He was the leader of his merc unit. In terms of the layers of hell, Violence and Anger were separated, but Anger is so all-encompassing he and other sort of double-dip into it.)

Charon: The Heretic. An interesting case as being a heretic in modern Shadowrun is more of a mental thing, but he's a fairly young ork(at 22, he's the second youngest member of the gang), who was raised by an extraordinarily religious family of the fire-and-brimstone type in Aztlan. Eventually breaking under the stress of his reclusive home life, he burned the church he went to, unfortunately killing one of the priests inside. Not being completely dim, he hightailed it out and eventually made it to Seattle. Afraid to die due to being told that he would burn and suffer forever in Hellfire for his entire life, he eventually found solace in vehicles, realizing as he disappeared into them he would forget his old life, quickly enjoying becoming 'one with the machine.' Spending more and more time here, he eventually started to use his ability to earn nuyen to live with; he eventually came to meet up with the rest of the lieutenants, and discovering what they did, he certainly became interested in it.

Charon had long renounced his religion and no longer fears death, though still feels deep down he has to atone(and he hates fire, small ones are generally alright but infernos tend to send him into heavy discomfort; count as a Mild phobia in game. He's not crippled by it but he is clearly left distracted.) He is the gang's vehicle expert and rigger. Charon is of average height for an ork(putting him around 6'4'' or so), has scruffy bright pink hair, swarthy skin, a slightly lean build for an ork(though he's not skinny), chromed cybereyes and tends toward a more 'punkish' style of dress these days(mostly him trying to get away from his old, forcibly strict styles); jeans or cargos, loose sleeveless shirts, and fingerless leather gloves-one of his favorite items being a battered but nicely customized armored urban camoflague jacket(all of his armor has a ton of fire resistance built in.) His colors are usually shown on his jacket in colored tape.

Charon has a simple shotgun for self-defense along with a knife but if he fights he fights in a vehicle or with a couple of drones(he's a ganger,he doesn't have an army but his van does have a hidden machine gun and a drone an SMG.) His 'baby' when it comes to drones is his heavily modified Steel Lynx, which he did manage to get ahold of during a knockover of a garage one day. His chosen targets are generally cult-like things that suck in the less fortunate and frighten them into staying. (The Universal Brotherhood-remember the time period-is high on his list, though he doesn’t know the real story behind them, should you play in the early 2050s.) He’s a fairly even-tempered lad who enjoys some beers and TV in seedy bars in his downtime, often keeping to himself, though fiercely protective of the gang.

(Charon's name is a little less tied to his sins and more tied to his duty; Charon is the ferryman of Hell, and he's the gang rigger, utilizing vehicles.)

Lilin: While her nickname is not as tied in compared to the rest, the gang decker's major sin was Greed. Raised rich, without a care in the world and funneled off to an excellent school to hone her decker abilities until she was further funneled off to a corp, she used anything and everything to get ahead and kept piling her cred up, up, and up. Living a previous life of luxury with about anything at her beck and call, she started to covet others' wealth as well; using her decking skills she would rip rivals' investments to shreds, driving them into financial ruin; she was rumored to cause at least one person to commit suicide after causing them to lose it all.

Of course, like all good while collar criminals, she eventually flew too close to the proverbial sun and went after the wrong people; people with ties to a corp with at least two A's after their name, and possibly three. After nearly dying in an explosion(she came home just a bit too late, thankfully the tube was held up somehow, to this day she counts it as a blessing she didn't deserve), she quickly lost everything; she found her own resources being demolished by an unknown assailant. Not being completely dim, she crawled underground with the little she had left and rebuilt her life the best she could from there; she then decided to atone by going after white collar criminals and extortionists, doing what she does best, and that's shred their resources and get them in all sorts of trouble with her 'baby', Mammon(her deck.)

She carries a Browning max-power and long stun baton for self defense but is generally found at gang HQ handling things in the Matrix. Her heavily customized Renraku Kraftwerk 8, however, is equipped with some nastiness, up to and including Black Hammer utilities(which can fatally attack deckers.) Lilin tried to get away from her previous highly expensive Tres Chic style of clothing(somewhat by necessity); she now chooses to dress more low-key in jeans and t-shirts, with a leather jacket for armor(these are common in the gang.) She did keep an old favorite item of hers, a silver bracelet-one of the last ties to her old life besides her deck(and something she has to remind herself where she came from and how she might not want to go back.) She wears her dark brown hair fairly long, though utilitarian, and has bright blue eyes. She had even picked up her first tattoo(on her forearm, a more tribal design.) Lilin has a penchant for old retro games(from way, way back in the 1990s even!) and will go through lengths to secure copies of them.

(Mammon is such a classic demon of greed, but I didn't want to give up this idea and had an idea for the female decker. So I decided that she named her deck Mammon. Also has a little tie-in to the Chrono Trigger 'Mammon Machine' idea as well, heh. I may have also been thinking about how Zeal fell...)

Beelzebub: Bel(as he's mostly called)is a dwarf-the oldest lieutenant at the ripe old age of thirty one-and his sin is Gluttony. He is a Gator shaman, and pretty much lives up to Gator's archetype, being lazy, loving to go for jobs with big payoffs that let him sit around and do essentially nothing for a long time. He has a taste for Bucket-burgers as well(they're easy to carry.)

It was this lifestyle that got him in trouble in the first place in his teens. Gluttony need not only be food, however, as he was a glutton for something else-gambling, and heavy gambling at that. He spent most of his time gambling away nuyen, stuffing his face with a bit too much McHughs and generally wearing on his older brother's resources, whom he lived with since they had no other family around. Eventually he lost their apartment, forcing them into more of a squat; at that point, his brother left him behind unable to take care of him. However, his brother was in the wrong place at the wrong time and killed by yet another repo man(one of the underbelly types), in a case of mistaken identity.

Having no hate for his brother even if they fought a lot, and guilty that his habits lead to their downfall and his death, he found out through the grapevine who did this, but not particularly being in much of a way of dealing with open combat himself, ended up wounded severely as well. Gator came to him, essentially saving the now-eighteen year old's life and allowed him to throw off a spell powerful enough to take out the attacker. He then devoted to attempting to come around, though he does, again, still take after his totem quite a lot(he tries to keep the gambling to a minimum nowadays, though he still slips up.) His targets are mostly the types like the man who murdered his brother, loan sharks, and so on-and in his own grumpy and gruff way he tries to get people out of the circle of losing everything they own. He tends to resent being considered a ‘father figure’ of the gang, usually fragging off to go drink a cheap synthahol after a job, though he does care for the members in his own way.

Bel resembles a 30-something redneck dwarf, with a scruffy beard, brown shaggy hair, weathered and ruddy skin, preferring jeans, work boots and flannel shirts as his style of dress, his bandanna around his neck. He's still a little chubby, though a harder life tends toward enough activity to counteract his indulgence in Bucket-Burgers. His mastery of offensive magic and command of city spirits(he actually has an affinity for them) quickly put paid to anyone who mocks him. Like Gator, he can have a temper on him(In a way, he could probably occasionally count as Anger, as well.) He is often seen with cigars and enjoys putting together retro models of various things(be it cars, old buildings, or whatnot.)

Bel fights with a Remington Roomsweeper sometimes but prefers his punishing combat spells or summoning spirits to wreak havoc; he generally doesn't get up front. If he has to, he has a jagged hunting knife. He has a few 'buffs' to throw around on others too.

(Under some writings, Beelzebub can be considered a demon of gluttony-not only the Lord of the Flies.)

Asmodeus: As his nickname says, this human has Lust is his major sin. The third youngest at twenty-three, this razorboy spent a lot of his early years throwing people-man, woman, human, or metahuman-aside after quick thrills. Drugs, drinking, it didn't matter; dropping out of high school early and taking on the life of a razorboy, his life also mixed in violence in between the usual antics. Paying for services was not below him, and while he personally never spiked a person's drink, he never spoke up if he saw it. There were lines that Asmo would not cross himself, but he certainly couldn't be considered a decent member of society, and had he disappeared at that time, he'd have gone un-noticed. He didn't have much of a family, his parents having been chipheads.

Eventually, he slept with the wrong person; the sibling of a second-tier gang leader; this got the leader fragged at Asmo and he went after him(since he ditched said acquisition aside as he usually would.) After a horrid fight where the leader's torso was scarred to bits and Asmo's arm was damaged to the point of needing a replacement, the rival lost the gang since he could not prove his superiority. After Asmo was hunted for a long time due to this-until he bailed from CalFree and went to Seattle he decided to take it easier since he realized his wham bam lifestyle tended to leave behind some vitriol.

Asmo looks and dresses much like a glam-rocker(frizzy hair, even some makeup, torn shirts, distressed jeans, boots, synthleather jackets, a gang color bandanna tied commonly around his upper thigh) with street-oriented combat 'ware and a glimmering cyberarm, and does still prowl the clubs from time to time, but now he chooses to turn his more razorboy oriented skills toward sexual predators to remove them from the streets, mostly since he felt particularly guilty about times he could have stopped things potentially but did not. He stands around six feet-not short but not standing out-and has a lean, but hard build. He’s actually fairly good at shredding on a guitar when he sits down to it, and has considered trying to get back with a band at some point, though he fears he might go into his old ways again around groupies.

Asmo has his razors, spurs, and an SMG, also equipped with rather strong reflexes and reflex enhancers, topped with a bit of muscle augmentation and toner in his meatbod. He is not as extensively cybered as Melek or Judas though is easily the fastest of the bunch.

(Asmodeus is traditionally a demon of lust.)

Astarte: The youngest of the group at just turning 19, this human lady of average height and slim build looks like a stereotypical high school goth in many ways; pale, makeup, black clothing, stockings, leather jacket; she has red, midnight blue and gray paint on her jacket in places typically for gang colors. She's also a mage, though still trying to completely understand her powers(she's Hermetic), and has decided to focus them toward more healing and defensive abilities. She also has an interest in the astral.

Being symbolic of Limbo, she's the lightest of them all when it comes to sins, though her big sin was actually apathy(which fits the grey wastes of limbo). Unhealthy amounts of it where she literally did not care about what went on around her, from random robberies, whatever-she just didn't seem to care as it didn't affect her, up to and including the time she saw a hint of smoke coming from a classroom that she just shrugged and thought was a science experiment flaring up, so she shrugged, didn't bother finding anyone, hit no alarms and walked out.

This caused an explosion(it was a bad reaction of chemicals) that killed a student and disfigured a teacher(he managed to get corrective surgery but it cost him about everything to do it.) Feeling guilty, she skipped from her home having recently awakened(raised by an aunt who was more 'adult' than 'family' so she was mostly alone), wanting to perhaps try to find camaraderie somewhere, which she did with the gang when she finally decided to help out with her magic.

Funny enough Astarte and Melek became an official item-jokes are muttered that she apparently is apathetic enough to not care or see what he does to enemies. Truth be told it started when she began to visit him after she had started noticing things around her, and she noticed he did not sleep well. She began to use her 'Dream' spell while he slept so he would not be haunted of nightmares caused by his previous 'ware damage and it went from there one day when he caught her when he woke up.

Astarte is armed with a Remington shotgun and monowhip, also utilizing Mana/Stun bolts, though generally her spells are specialized in support; if pressed for heavy ordinance she has a force 6 Earth elemental she calls Chronos that she sends to wreak havoc.

(Astarte is the queen of the spirits of the dead. She liked how it sounded.)

Gang Rating: Superior

Head Count: Aprox. 35-40 members.

Initiation Rituals: Prospective members have to first confess their 'sin' to an appropriate member(one particularly who shares said 'sin'. Said 'sin' does need to correspond with one of the nine levels of the hells; generally speaking that's a large amount. Then the gang tests them by having them defeat(somehow, it doesn't have to be physically; a greedy person can for example rob someone blind), another criminal who is currently involved in said nefarious business(after tracking them down on their own, of course). They must find someone within one month of the 'confession'. There must be at least two witnesses to this to prove it was done. Afterward, they are sworn in through blood(generally using one of Melek's Cougar Fineblades)-seen as a sort of penance-and put under one of the corresponding lieutenants.

Note that the 'sin' has to be actually there. For example, going after a 'runner who they heard had to gun down some corpsec in a botched escape doesn't count as a 'Violence' sin; they had to defend themselves. A fellow vigilante who robs greedy people wouldn't count, either. Someone who viciously goes after and beats to death any an every worker at a corp-from secretaries to janitors walking home-would count, since these people most of the time are simply trying to earn a living, not having anything to do with any of the bad stuff. (Gms-if you want to use the gang and have PCs interesting in joining, use judgment here.)

Funny enough, the gang is not actually religious as a whole, though some individual members may be in their ways.

Uniforms: The gang's colors are red, midnight blue, and gray, with gray being a theme(being neither good nor evil). They wear it somewhere on their bodies. Bandannas are common, tied wherever a member wishes. So long as the colors are represented somehow(colored tape, tattoos, bandanas, whatever), it's of no consequence how its worn; most gang members have a variety of styles because they come from a variety of walks of life, though for a 'general appearance' leather jackets and jeans are common.

Symbol: A crudely drawn 'gate' like symbol-an arch and two pillars connected at the top-symbolizing the gateway to the hells.

Territory: Tacoma and Downtown are their preferred grounds.

Operations: Mostly earn nuyen by fencing loot that they collect from the criminals they take down; sometimes selling weapons, chopping vehicles, or whatnot. They aren't so philanthropic that they try to get said stuff back to its original owners(they aren't THAT resourceful to track them down), so they do the next best thing. They also sell their individual skills when needed(their lieutenants can get fairly lucrative work, being actual real shadowrunners than street scum, though given the trouble they've run into, they choose to lay low.) They tend to leave civilians alone on their turf; they're the vigilantes going after the people who target civvies, after all.

Foes: Given the more educated background of some of them, they tend to run into issues with more 'Street Bred' gangs who think they're privileged drekheads(and some of the Trog underground take offense to Judas' cosmetic surgery, even though he was handsome to begin with.) Being vigilantes naturally puts them in contention with authorities, especially because they seem to be better at dealing with crimes in rougher zones than they are.

Uniqueness: While vigilante justice in the Sixth World is by no means rare(given corp cops often have their own ends), a gang devoted to it-particularly one of 'atoners' like this one-is probably a rarity. Their theme is uncommon, and their modus operandi is likewise something you won't see. The eclectic mix of people-looking to maybe not necessarily clear their consciences but to try to make up for what they have done, and sometimes maybe indulge their darker sides, depending on what 'sins' they are tied to.

Some of the rank-and-file are types who feel they have nothing left to lose until they 'atone', which can make them very dangerous in a battle. The lieutenants in particular are still very flawed individuals; while Judas would never betray his gang like he did the others, he is still willing enough to go out and be judge, jury, and executioner. Likewise, driving people into financial ruin even if they are bad guys isn't the best way of going about things. Melek is violent enough he gives several other members pause, having been left a bit damaged and never 'repaired' fully. Yet, they do quite a service to the people around.

Despite a few of them coming indeed from better means(and even college educations in some part), the gang maintains a typical more Low lifestyle(their hideout-rumored to be in a converted underground place in Tacoma-is actually skirting Medium.)

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Aesculapians

Gang Focus: Sort of like the Red Hot Nukes, this gang considers themselves more along the lines of a 'Neighborhood Association' type(in fact, they get along fairly well with the Nukes, given they actually share a goal somewhat of 'protecting their neighborhood' in Redmond, even if they sometimes see the Nukes' methods as extreme-they do accept sometimes this has to happen.)They sort of act as a 'poor man's Docwagon' in a sense.

They will fight to defend people and their territory, but generally prefer stun spells(if magically active), gel rounds, concussion grenades and stun batons, or even drugs in syringes that cause no lasting damage(just knocking people out.) If they must use live ammo or a real spell it is in dire straits only, to protect another life.

Leader:

Doc Brown, an unseemly choice for a gang leader, being a 38-year old human. He did indeed get his nickname from the various old flatvid moves he enjoys watching on his spare time. Charismatic and even tempered, Doc Brown was actually a military medic in his younger years. Having worked on the field until he was thirty, he saw a lot of bad out there, but also saw how he could do a lot of good. After being discharged honorably after being injured on the field(his knee still acts up on rainy, cold days though it is dealt with easily enough), he joined Docwagon...only to become quickly disenfranchised with how they turned medicine into a business.

Eventually getting disgusted when he witnessed them leave a ganger to die one day because they were afraid to go in(being an ex combat medic, he looked upon this as cowardice as they did tend to have heavily armed guards with them), he quit, walking out of his life after funneling some funds and just a bit of gear over to Redmond to potentially set up a shadow clinic. After meeting up with his other three lieutenants, the group decided to do one better and actually became a gang, feeling an almost sort of camaraderie that they hadn't before in their other jobs, and they were better able to relate to other Redmond folk in that state. Over time, the gang grew in size, and they now boast a respectable number of varied specialists in different areas.

Doc Brown is of average height, with messy brown hair(he's starting to get a few gray streaks already, though he has lived a fairly stressful life), and a very 'typical' appearance(think 'Blandness' edge.) He has an average, though healthy build(his previous shape from being in the military has worn off somewhat.) He is actually skilled in some weaponry out of his old necessity, but prefers an Ares Predator with gel rounds, concussion grenades(he has an Armtech-6 which he takes into hostile territory), and is decent with his long stun baton, though he's only above average in terms of physical ability. (He has a mix of 'ware from his military, though most of this is mental stuff.) He generally wears jeans, work boots and a t-shirt with an old urban camouflage type of jacket with it(armored, and well protected.) His only visible cyberware is a datajack and chipjack; his cybereyes are picked to resemble his originals(hazel.)

Lieutenants: 3

Joey C: a young mage of around 26, he came from a middle-class family whose corporate sponsored teachers, immediately upon finding out he was magically active, assembled a new set of courses for him and found himself on the academic fast-track. Being a fairly low-key and even somewhat shy fellow, he actually found himself enjoying his newfound confidence in this(given he was not much of an athlete or interested in much else except for reading and video games in his youth.)

He quickly realized-upon reaching his fourth year of medical college(being trained to be a magical cybersurgeon, who are greatly appreciated), that his 'free education' came with strings of servitude to a corporation for an unknown time. Deciding he did not want this life, having seen how a couple of his friends became rather soulless in the process, over the next two years managed to arrange himself to bail out, scrubbing some of his records, and taking refuge in the underground. He met up with Doc Brown by chance while looking for work he could do on the down-low, and being a mage with access to healing spells AND cybernetic knowledge, almost immediately found himself set up in Brown's clinic. (He's the closest thing to a cyberdoc they have, though Brown does have his share of cyber knowledge as well.

Joey is an African-American about five foot nine, slightly chubby, with hair cropped short, light brown eyes, and has taken to wearing a lab coat as his 'signature', as he sort of likes how it kinda-sorta resembles 'mage robes' given his magical ties. He otherwise dresses casually in jeans, sneakers and a sweatshirt or t-shirt, not particularly standing out. His old class ring is actually a power focus. He carries a staff with him, which can be used to subdue opponents(mostly he thinks it looks cool.) He's also a bit of a comedian.

Andi: A human woman from the UCAS of unknown decent, she was 23 when she was wrongfully accused at her university for stealing drugs from the lab(she was specialized in pharmaceuticals.) Having been heading on the fast-track to being a worker in a corp which she does not mention, she was quickly estranged by her family, as they did not believe her when she told them. Being cut off from the family resources, she decided to try to find medical work in the underground via shadow clinics. About 25 now, she met up with Doc Brown when he was working with his clinic; the two quickly became friends over a soykaf and he needed someone that was skilled in the things she knew.

Andi stands around 5'5'', has strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes; she has a datajack and some other headware installed, as well as a chemical analyzer which helps her in her work. Her choice of clothing tends toward blue jeans and a scrub shirt(which she says she got used to in college and is 'fragging comfortable.') She keeps her hair pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail most of the time and chooses an ordinary armored jacket while outdoors with her Ares Squirt concealed inside. She has a large military rucksack which she often has on her back which has a various supply of necessary items, and has a car which she does drive around from time to time(the headquarters has a garage in it.)

Overseeing much of the gang's drug/pharmaceutical activity, she is usually back at the hideout doing various things with them. If pressed in combat, her choice of weapon is an Ares Squirt with some sort of painless subdual concoction inside of it. Andi loves the game Go and is often seen playing a round with people at a cafe or something(as well as with the other two lieutenants, who likewise enjoy games of skill. In fact, one of the things often kept in her 'doctor's bag' is a small Go set.)

Keiji:a Japanese-American troll, he's the youngest lieutenant at 24. The physically toughest of the bunch(even moreso than Doc Brown who hasn't been on the lines in awhile), he is no less skilled in terms of his medical skills; his specialty is general emergency care, quickly setting limbs and using his strength to get people gently to the headquarters if necessary. He has a van which he is skilled at driving(though he is not a Rigger, and he is not the only 'emergency driver' they have.) He has some light 'ware. He also has quite a bit of knowledge of the inner workings of people, and will oversee the organlegging on the odd unfortunate time they cannot save someone nor find any of their contacts(there is no use to wasting potentially life-saving organs.)

Keiji came from a human family; being fairly traditional Japanese and associated with Mitsuhama(a very traditional company), they did not take too kindly when their son goblinized around his fifteenth birthday. Still holding family fairly important, they decided to go ahead and send him through school, though did not particularly care to see him too much after that. Realizing there was not much he could do with no backing and with little money having to pay off his debt himself, he took to the underground in an attempt to find work he could cope with. He met with Joey and Andi while they were actually playing Go and had some interest, and it didn't take them too long to find out his skills.

Keiji is actually rather handsome(influenced by this artwork from SR: Hong Kong actually), with long, black hair pulled back in a loose tail, pale green cybereyes, and groomed horns and tusks. He likes wearing fairly casual and 'street-tough' clothing-tank tops, an armored leather jacket, cargos and boots, and does not look like the type able to deftly put someone back together, but he is. He's around eight feet tall(putting him above average troll height, though not as big as some) and of medium build. If he has to fight he relies on a shotgun with stun rounds and is actually fairly skilled at judo(which he uses to disarm and subdue opponents without killing them.) He's also artistic, and has skill at tattooing(a side interest of his.)

Gang Rating: Equal

Head Count: Aprox. 15-20 members.

Initiation Rituals: Prospective members must find and stabilize a character with Deadly damage. Once they are safe, they take the person back to an offshoot of the gang's HQ(one of their crude clinics that they set up), and the member must nurse the person back to the point where they are able to leave on their own(a Medium wound or less, preferably Light.) At this point they are sworn in, though they do not use the Hippocratic Oath(as sometimes they DO need to throw down with weapons.)

To become a lieutenant, a member must successfully resuscitate and heal a patient. They of course must not WAIT until a patient gets to that point(sadly in Redmond, it's usually not difficult to find someone at this point).(Mages have an easier time here. Yes, this means mages with access to things like the Stabilize spell have an easier time getting into and advancing the gang, but they group is all too eager to take on healing mages.)

Uniforms: They actually dress casually(which on the streets means jeans, t-shirts and the like), but always have some sort of medical item on their person. A lab coat, a scrub shirt, a doctor's bag, a hospital band, anything of that nature. Their colors are white and pale green(the 'typical' colors of scrubs), and use everything from bandanas to colored tape to show off the colors somewhere. They tend to be armed with non-lethal weaponry(concussion and smoke grenades are actually common, with Doc Brown still having some military contacts, as are stun/gel rounds, stun batons, clubs and the like.)

Symbol: A crude, simplistic Rod of Aesculapius, easy to draw via spraypaint or something of that nature quickly.

Territory: The Aesculapians claim Redmond generally as their turf(with a couple of exceptions.) They are not particularly territorial, though, given the nature of their operations.

Operations: They aren't lawful good, and given they don't charge for their 'emergency services', they do make money selling pharmaceuticals on the side(they actually feel they do a favor by supplying some of the denizens with 'clean' drugs instead of filthy needles and badly-cut, potentially deadly ones), and they'll unload stolen medical equipment for a price to varied street docs and the like as well. Given many members have had ties to various medical facilities and colleges, and some contacts therein, they sort of still have some access to things here and there. (They have limits; they will not, for example, hold up a Docwagon cart that is handling an emergency.) Sometimes they lose people, given they have crude headquarters and the like this is unfortunate(or they get there too late), selling old cyberware to street docs(after cleaning and sterilizing it) is also done, or keeping it for later installation if it is a limb or something of that nature. Their side-business is lucrative enough(along with the occasional knocking-over of Docwagon/CrashCart) that it keeps them with the necessary cred. (While they do not like to do this, if people are lost and their kin cannot be contacted, they will take part in organlegging, though they will only sell organs to other street docs.)

Foes: They do run into issues with Docwagon; namely because they do have to generally steal their equipment and are not shy about doing it, particularly from Docwagon as they do not like the way they are 'choosy' with their medical care. Some gangs see them as equal parts angel and devil; the latter because they end up trying to patch up anyone, regardless of affiliation; at the same time, the other gangs do not like to lose their source of potential healing. They can run into issues with other drug dealers from time to time as well.

Uniqueness: A 'medic gang' is something that you don't see very often in the Sprawl. All of them coming from different walks of life and such, they have taken to the streets to try to do what others cannot. They have limited resources to keep people healed up, some gang members taking on the roles of nurses or whatnot for some people, and they can even do certain cyberware surgeries. The gang doesn't have the equipment to implant bioware nor particularly touchy things like reflexes or anything requiring heavy neural implants-they are limited to cyberlimbs, weapons, and other quickly-installed and not particularly invasive items. They are on good terms with several clinics around, though, and will give 'street referrals' to people looking for such things.

In a way they bridge the gap between gangs and cyberclinics/street docs. Their clinic would be equivalent to a more 'middle' lifestyle as well.

--

The Technodrones

Gang Focus: This 'tech gang' is essentially made up of disenfranchised, intelligent but more low-income (ex)students who generally want to escape prospective corp life. (Corps have a habit of sometimes recruiting promising, budding students-particularly mages, but technically inclined people as well-and giving them scholarships, which families tend to push them toward. Of course, this tends to come with the 'strings' of what becomes 'indentured servitude' to said corp afterward.)

The leader and lieutenants are all particularly victims of this; the rest of the gang come from all walks of life, all with an interest and skill in drone rigging, but nowhere to really turn. The gang are almost mercenary like in their ways, selling their services to people who happen to need them; they run cheaper than Shadowrunners(though they are also generally less well-spread out, being more specialists). They also perform 'neighborhood services' if requested.

Leader:

Gearbox: A young dwarf who doesn't mind the humor/stigma of being a stereotypical fan of mechanics. Gearbox is around 24 years old, though looks a little older(he's got more facial hair than one might expect a 24 year old to have). An actual graduate of MIT&M(Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Magic), he had ran away from his old life on the East Coast once he heard a rumor that any of the young folks involved never really did get any choice in their new jobs. Managing to drain some certified cred from a few places, he bought a train ticket to Seattle with only a large rucksack filled with tools and equipment, and attempted to set up to make his own life.

Given he was decent at fixing and repairing things, he was able to set himself up in a more underground garage, making a living, though not a massive one. He started to take old, junked drones that were lying around and began to fix them up in his spare time; he realized first he could make fair cred turning these around, and second, he was actually pretty damn good at piloting them, and realized that perhaps these services would be useful to people willing to pay.

Gearbox is Latino, with black hair, brown eyes, and a much heavier beard than even a dwarf of his age might have; he's fairly hirsute in general. He's got a knack for languages, speaking three fluently(English, Spanish and Japanese), and actually speaking German, Italian, Korean and even Sperethiel to decent levels, making it easy for him to deal with people. He drives a large, heavily modified van(which has more than one pop-up turret that he's not adverse to using), and in that his 'drone army' is kept; he has six fully tweaked and well-taken care of drones of many types; a Roto-Drone, a smaller spy drone, of course an outfitted Steel Lynx. One of Gearbox's favorite pastimes is watching American football, and on his spare time can even be seen going to a game live at Seattle's stadium during the season.

Lieutenants: 2

Torquewrench: A 23 year old human from the seedy side of the Barrens. Barely able to graduate high school unlike the other two, he's actually incredibly intelligent; just being a young fella from the bad side of the Barrens from a family of about five tended to let the teachers sort of just ignore him. He did a lot of reading and tinkering on his spare time, loving shop class since it was the one place where the teacher paid attention to him. He did manage to make it through-he also excelled at math, though other subjects weren't his forte-though college was a distant dream. He simply couldn't pull the grades needed for a scholarship, and despite being an almost prodigy at tech, they were more interested in either overall excelling students, or mages. He did wrestling on the school team on the side.

His family ended up moving to CalFree after his parents both received a good job offer; however, he was ingrained into his place here-he didn't care to move to California, and insisted on staying behind; his other siblings scattered to the wind. He began to work in a small garage, making enough to pay for his little flop of an apartment, until one day he met up with Gearbox, who had some impressive drones that he actually managed to suggest some improvements to. After being introduced to Gadget, the three became friends and from there the rest was as they say Technodrone history.

Torquewrench is actually fairly large;he's around 6'3'' or so and easily the most physically inclined of the bunch, though like the rest of them he still prefers to do what he does via his drones and vehicles. Like his name, he happens to use a large one of these as a club when it comes down to it, though he is also armed with a Remington 990 if things go bad. (He usually packs stun rounds unless things look bleak.) His hair is shoulder-length and blonde, in no particular style but 'messy', and his cybereyes are a mirrored blue color. Torque also has a penchant for watching WCWF(World Cyber Wrestling Federation), and can actually mimic the moves rather impressively in combat. He's a jeans and tshirt guy when he's not wearing the boiler suit, and his hands are forever grimy with oil that will never seem to come out.

Gadget: A young human who is only 22, but a prodigy at mechanics. She lived a fairly decent childhood; two parents who had emigrated from Iran when they were about twenty(she was born and raised in Denver), and a younger sibling. They worked decent corporate jobs and doted on both kids; but her younger sister was found out to be a full magician; and thus, from any corporate family, a prize. Despite her completely cleaning up in school grade wise and being on the academic fast track, a mage was too hard to ignore, so she was mostly put on the back burner; cared for physically and even emotionally, but her parents did not particularly care what happened career wise at this point, figuring she was smart enough to figure things out on her own.

She left for Seattle after two years of college(she graduated at 17), after she grew bored; one of the first people she met was Gearbox when she went to a garage to look for some parts for a drone that she was working on customizing. After a few friendly drone battles, the two started to realize their skills could actually start bringing in nuyen; almost as a message, Torquewrench came along only a week later and with the three of them, the gang was founded, with the other two deferring to Gearbox as the leader, respecting his slightly older age and the fact he beat them a few more times in drone fights.

Gadget is about 5'7'' with medium-length black hair and brown eyes, usually wearing a casual armored jacket while outdoors, along with the typical t-shirts and jeans that the gang tends toward, along with a bag that usually has a variety of tools in it(her drone repair kit.) While going full drone pilot, she and the others often wear boiler suits of sorts(in gang colors.) Her combat drone is armed with a Mossberg, and she carries a Browning Max-Power for a sidearm herself; she carries a stun baton in melee if necessary(and actually has one of her melee drones equipped with one, as to not be fatal.)

Gang Rating: Equal

Head Count: Aprox. 15-20 members.

Initiation Rituals: Initiation into the gang is a 2 part affair. All members of the gang must have at least a Vehicle Control Rig-1 or greater, for starters.

First, in a sort of game of 'Battlebots', a prospective member must take on one of the Lieutenant's drones in drone combat. Firearms are not allowed for this, as it tends to make things too easy. Melee weapons are allowed on the drones(usually ramming or hydraulic type of weapons). This battle goes on until the first vehicle reaches S damage(for roleplaying purposes, becomes 'rather damaged', since naturally damage codes aren't alluded to in game.) The catch is here-despite VCRs being necessary, this must be done with traditional remote control; the gang wants to see how well you can handle something if you can't jack into it.

The second half is that the member has to then repair the lieutenant's drone themselves back to fully working order. They are allowed to use the gang's workshop for this(but any spare parts must come out of their own pockets). They have one week to complete this. If they do not, then they must compensate the lieutenant their own drone in recompense. (It's one of the reasons this gang has low membership, but highly skilled drone pilots and repair people.)

Uniforms: Goggles(worn on the head or normally) are required when all members are out and about; otherwise people are free to dress casually as they will(usually, they pick utilitarian clothing). When going full drone pilot, they wear jumpsuits or boiler suits in their gang colors. Their gang colors are steel and brown, worn any way the gang member wishes(often using paint or tape on jackets and their drones as well; their drones are practically treated like extra members of the gang.

Symbol: A crudely drawn small 'tank drone'-picture something like a tank a child would draw with crayons. The small tank may or may not be blasting something from its turret.

Territory: They don't claim too much as their 'own', but they are often found around Downtown and Puyallup, mostly around the junk and salvage yards in those areas. Their hidden HQ is actually in Renton, a large converted factory that actually has a deep basement, perfect for holding a vehicle and drone facility.

Operations: The Technodrones have a few ways of making money. Their most lucrative is most definitely vehicle chopping; given their overall average skill level they are able to quickly chop and strip vehicles for a premium; if you need a vehicle chopped fast and with no questions, the Technodrones are the place to go.

Underground battlebot fights are also a decent pull; once a month they usually hold one that attracts riggers of all types. Scouring junkyards, repairing and reselling used and junked drones and small vehicles also works out pretty well for them. Hell, they'll even give you a tuneup; they're not above chopping vehicles but they personally won't steal your car.

Foes: Given they don't claim too much turf as their own, and are not particularly territorial, they don't run into too many problems, actually, particularly since they're not overtly vicious, mostly using their drones in combat if necessary. That being said, they do tend to step on the toes of gangs who happen to have chopping vehicles as one of their more lucrative endeavors; given the Technodrones are generally better at it than most, and they are almost actually trustworthy as far as gangs go, they can suck up some of the business there. They can clash with people at junkyards over the best parts.

Uniqueness: A gang of(mostly)young Drone Riggers that operate in random areas of Seattle is definitely not something one finds a lot; even rarer than decker/Matrix gangs which actually do float around from time to time. They hold no prejudice about who can join, just so long as you know how to fix and pilot a drone.