[OOC] [Shadowrun] Sprawl Stories (Accepting new players!)

"It's tough being a Neo-Anarchist these days. The corps own your hoop, friend. And looking around, I'm reminded of how easy I thought the revolution was gonna be back in the day.

The man on the street has power, chummer. Every day people are Awakening, every day some kid teaches themself how to hack. Every day a ganger picks up a gun and finds out he's got good aim. If we wanted to, we could take back control, freedom. True freedom, not just freedom to pick which corp is gonna bend us over today. But they've got us by the short ones. They're in our heads, telling us how to think what we want. They make us think it's our own great idea to sign our lives over to the corps. I gave up on revolution years ago, chum. If anything's gonna happen, it'll come from the shadows.

I'm not blind to the irony of escaping a life as a corp-slave only to work for them anyway. But I figure, if I can help take the fraggers down a notch, using their own money, that's a pretty good deal for me. I still get to go home at the end of the day and know that my ass belongs to me. In my file, that's a win.

I think you might feel the same way. You wouldn't believe the drek I've had to dodge after some of your runs. Yo, no hard feelings, omae. Just to say, I've seen you work. I like it. I think you've got potential, kid. I wanna get in on the action. Got a job for ya.""

Okay, so if you're not familiar with the tabletop RPG Shadowrun, here's the gist: It's the year 2072, and we're in Seattle. Megacorporations pretty much own the entire world by now. Magic is back, and so are elves, orks, trolls, dwarves and a plethora of other magical creatures. So, you know, cyberpunk with dragons.

You are a team of Shadowrunners. Deniable assets, hired to do the kind of work you don't want seeing the light of day. Plausible deniability is the keyword here; when a corp wants to steal an employee, get a hold of someone else's blueprints for a new cyberarm or have someone, well, disappear, they call you—through a Mr. Johnson, that is.

Like in all the good heist movies, everyone has a job to do. Here are a few of the archetypal team roles:

The Face takes care of social interactions. Need a grifter to provide a distraction at a fancy party? Someone to seduce a password out of that wageslave? The Face is your guy—or girl. Sometimes both.

The Thief steals stuff. Whether using magic, tech or sheer athletic prowess, The Thief is who you go to when you want to get in somewhere—quietly.

The Street Samurai is a cybernetically enhanced killing machine who's literally got wired reflexes. Master of every weapon, the Street Sam is willing to carve out a piece of himself if it means replacing it with a better, faster part.

The Hacker lives and breathes the Matrix. Give her thirty seconds alone with a wireless connection, and she'll have turned the building's security system on itself. She knows about your porn collection.

The Rigger isn't just a mere getaway driver, he's also got a sizable collection of drones. He's got you covered on machines, even if it means he has to load his mind into a drone and become one with it.

The Magician takes care of the paranormal. These days every corp's got wagemages on patrol, and you need The Magician to deal with that. Whether they're a hermetic mage, casting obscure spells from their digital tomes or a shaman communing with the spirits of the Sprawl, you can be sure The Magician will see that fireball coming before you do.

This list is in no way comprehensive, and one character can do a decent job on covering two different roles (Hacker/Riggers aren't uncommon), so think of what part you'd wanna play in a movie heist, and there's probably a Shadowrun equivalent.

Now, I want the details of this to be something we decide together (such as which kind of heist our Shadowrunners will be pulling), but I have some basic ideas about this RP. They're by no means static.

Sprawl Stories is gonna be a relatively short roleplay. By this I mean it has a clear beginning and end as well as a somewhat limited in-game timeframe. Hopefully this should keep us from dragging on too much. If we're still up for it after the mission, we can always do another one.

A typical Shadowrun follows the four phases: the meet, planning the mission, the mission itself, getting paid. These would be nice to follow, as it gives everyone a chance to shine. Also you get to actually plan a heist.

Shadowrun is a tabletop game at heart, but there will be no stats and no dice (but if you feel like rolling a d20 yourself to randomize how well your character does, I won't stop ya). I trust everyone to manage the power level and keep things realistic. Well, as realistic as a cyberpunk fantasy universe can get. That said, I am gonna be asking some stat-like questions in the character sheet. Really helps you flesh out your character.

In the same vein: Although I'm definitely gonna be doing some GM'ing, don't feel like you need me to create every detail of the world. Let's just agree that what gets posted in the IC is canon. So if your character does some research and finds a forgotten sewer tunnel that leads into the building you're hitting, well, then there's a fraggin' sewer tunnel. Just, you know, don't abuse that power. I trust you.

If you wanna know more about the universe, check out http://shadowrun.wikia.com/, download the rulebook or ask any questions you may have in this thread.

Alright? Sound interesting? Sweet! Check out the character sheet below.

Charsheet [+]

Ask any questions you like. I hope to see some great character sheets so we can start thinking up a heist.

Before you start writing up your character sheet, write a post in this thread telling us which role on the team you'd like to occupy. That way we hopefully won't get too much overlap.

Remember: Shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never, ever cut a deal with a dragon.

CHARACTERS

Blue Demon: Ze Lei-Ne [+]

Lord Pie: Doomstride [+]

Ollumhammersong: Thovren [+]

Munk: Red Five [+]

cunfuzzler: Mouse [+]

The Roman07: Mr. Contrakt [+]

MIA

The Roman07: Old Soul [+]

stickman: Quicksilver [+]

Name: Ivellios

Street name: Thovren

Race: Elf

Age: 28

Appearance: I really do hate using pictures as my characters description. I find them a poor subtitute for description and imagination. But every so often I find one that either fits exactly what I had in mind. Or is simply to badass to pass up. If anyone has played this game this picture is from you know how awesome it really is.

But back to useful info. Approx 5'9" tall with a somewhat more slender build common to all elves. His cyber arm was built to match that and is not thick or bulky like a human or an orc cyber arm. Never the less there is no extra effort put in to cover the replacement with syntehic skin. So the gleam of metal is quite noticeable in contrast. His skin is slightly pale due to his allergy and spending most of his time in his workshop or otherwise inside buildings during the day as a result.

My Spoiler [+]

Role: Rigger

Bio: Ivellios's mother was a shoemaker, a street term for someone specializing
in forging identities and papers for illegal citizens. And his father was a hacker who loaned out his services to runner teams for the right price. But he never left his home, his skills were enough that it wasn't necessary for most operations. They were born to the lower class, but their earnings from their trade (and never hacing actually gotten caught) managed to get them a modest,middle level apartment, though far from the penthouse suite. They never had SIN numbers and were never recognized as citizens. As such their child was born to the same fate. And without SIN numbers one cannot get a real job in any corperation's holdings. His father taught him many of his computer skills but Ivellios never really had any apptitude for weaving and controlling the matrix. His skills stayed with hardware and physical objects. When he was ten he made his first robot of his own design, it was a crude and rusty old piece fo crap but it worked. Mostly. Needless to say his father was impressed.
It is probably for the best that he took to computers so readily as he was born fairly frail, Even for an elf. And his allergy while rare is very inconvenient for anyone but someone in the shadowrunners profession. Recent years as a shadow runner have forced his body to become more fit and trimmed out of necessity. But he still retains some of the qualities from his youth, despite the current hardening of his body.
Much to the charinge of his father, who stayed safe at his home during missions he was hired to do, Ivellios found work as a shadowrunner in his youth, one of the only options someone in his position, with limited wealth and no SIN number is able to do. Aside from run with one of the local gangs. But unlike his father whose proficiency with the matrix means he hardly ever has to leave his private set up at home. Ivellios found his skills controlling robotics, turrets, drones and cars which often required him to be inch away from whatever it was he was trying to use. And it often ment he did not have to work in the day, though bright neon and other lights of the nightlife still blurred his vision. It was part of the reason he lost his arm during his second job. Due to his allergy his skin feels incredibly uncomfortable under direct sunlight. And his eyes can quite literally be in pain from to much light, but other people would not consider those amounts out of the ordinary. To him they were blinding and debilitating. Not being able to see clearly is a major handicap, especially when working with some of the toys he works with. Needless to say the job did not go well. Two members of the team died and Ivellios lost an arm in the immediate aftermath.
Unfortunatly they didn't even manage to complete the job, so they didn't get paid. Which made things a pain, he needed new drones, new equipment. And a new arm, He also decided to get new eyes. Mabye cybereyes wouldn't have the same issue as his old ones? Mabye they could stand up to intense lights without getting him maimed in the future? Despite the cost It was a small price to pay in his opinion. He was forced to scrounge what he could from the scrap bins for his drones and hardware. And help from his parents for the new cyberware. Cyberlimbs unlike eyes, aren't cheap. Even an obvious and base model can run in the thousands. But he couldn't make do without an arm in his line of work. And no matter how pissed his parents were and the near endless ranting from his mother on endangering himself and making the wrong choices in careers, they still lent him the money.
So one painful surgery later a new Thovren emerged into the streets. A few small jobs since that incident have let him become accustomed to his new arm and eyes. And give him some capital to afford new toys and even his own apartment. Though it is lower class, and in a far seedier area of town than his parents, who he is slowly paying back for the loaned money. At his fathers very loud and harsh insistance.

Traits:
Positive traits: Bilingual (Sperethial, all elves know this language) Aptitude (repair and Hard-wiring) Codeslinger (Drone commands, firewalls and software) Juryrigger

Negative traits: Low pain tolerance, Incompetence (Melee combat of any kind), mild Allergy to sunlight. Which is why his face is covered constantly while outside to protect himself

Cyberware:
Control Rig
Datajack
Touchlink
-Cyberarm (Basic quality, right forearm/hand only, obvious)
Cybereyes (Rating1, basic quality,)

Gear: -Portable toolkit
-A standard 'Avalon' commlink head peice, AR gloves, and AR goggles with an image link for his drones.
-Armour vest (as seen in picture)
-GMC bulldog Step van, And and slightly beatup piece of garbage that he keeps running as smooth as he possibly can. Useful for a getaway vehicle in a pinch for the entire team. But also serves as a mobile workshop and command center for use of his drones. Its a common enough vehicle not to be questioned, well not often at least.
-1 standard Credstick
-Gasmask (as seen)
-1 Gm Nissan Doberman crawler drone. About the size of the animal which it is named this most basic of drone models for the aspiring shadowrunner. It is mounted with am AK-97 carbine with four 50 round belts of ammunition.
-2 MTC fly spy- minidrones, these drones are shaped to look like dragonflies, at the end of each wing are rotor blades that rotate and tilt to allow incredible amneuverablility.
-1 jury rigged small drone, A metal orb as large as an orcs head is held a lot by two rotor blades that fold up for easy storage and transportation. At least thats the idea. The piece itself is still in Thovren's van being fine tuned and uploaded with the right software. He is also looking to attach some form of pistol to its underside. But that is still a work in progress.

-Ares Predator mark I heavy pistol, the higher grade Marks are a little out of his budjet at the moment. Though he hopes to fix that.
-4 15 round clips on his person for his sidearm.