The Found Arcana – Chapter 5 [OOC]

  • jack_spade

    Organizer
    March 5, 2020 at 1:06 am

    Bobby „MadCat“ Walker (Amerindian)

    Karma Spend/Total: 148/150 (5 from Starting Karma)

    Chapter 1: 8k reward turns to 6800 after taxes – all that goes to reduce the In Debt quality down from 30.000 to 23.200
    Spending 4 Karma to reduce the quality down to In Debt II.
    10 Karma go to Flesh Sculpter quality, 15 Karma go to Taboo Transformer, leaving me with 1 Karma
    Spending 4 Karma to buy off In Debt II

    Chapter 2: 10000 Nuyen payout, 8500 after taxes. 1850+150 ear marked for lifestyle share, reducing debt by 6200 to 17.000,
    End of the month increases it to 18.700 Nuyen. Rest goes to money in hand

    Interlude:
    Karma: 2 karma, enough to buy off a rank of In Debt if you can afford it
    Contact: Katsuo “Andrew” Musai, Yakuza sergeant, at Connection 4, Loyalty 1
    Knowledge Skills (general): 3 points to spend as you please, to either buy new knowledge skill(s) and/or to add to existing knowledge skills, the goal being to advance things that are often afterthoughts. Spend these the same way you would in chargen (e.g. a specialization costs 1 skill point).
    Knowledge Skill (specific): Sioux Sign Language at rank 1. This is from Native American Nations, Volume 1. It’s good for secure, non-verbal communication when wireless is unavailable or inadvisable. Granted, this was much more common in 1E-3E than it is now, but I think it’s something that Bobby might be able to mime while in some of his animal forms.

    Chapter 3:
    Karma: 25
    Contact: Jhonney Morad (Arms Dealer),(Connection: 3,Loyalty: 1)

    Knowledge Skill: Small Unit Tactics 1
    Money: 8000 Nuyen, 6800 after taxes. 1500 go to Lifestyle (left 5300), 500 go to Lysander (left 4900), 4700 go to reduce Debt
    Debt 18.700 reduced to 14.000. At the end of the next month this increases back up to 15.400 Nuyen
    200 go to Money on hand

    Interlude:
    Karma: 2
    Contact: +1 Loyalty, Katsuo “Andrew” Musai (now Loyalty 2)
    Knowledge Skill (specific): +1 Sioux Sign Language
    Knowledge Skills (general): 3 points: +1 Small Unit Tactics (having seen the gang in Action), New Knowledge Skill Gangs (Redmond) for 2

    Chapter 4:
    Karma: 20
    Money: 14250 Nuyen, 12.112 after taxes.
    Debt 15,400 reduced to 3,400, 112 go to money on hand

    Interlude 2:
    Karma: 2 – spend on Battle Hardened I (Discounted)
    Knowledge Skills (general): 3 points to spend as you please, to either buy new knowledge skill(s) and/or to add to existing knowledge skills, the goal being to advance things that are often afterthoughts. Spend these the same way you would in chargen (e.g. a specialization costs 1 skill point).
    Quality (optional): Buy 1 rank of the Battle Hardened quality (Street Lethal, p. 181) without the x2 multiplier for postchargen quality purchases. So, +1 rank = 2 karma. The benefit: “Gain +1 to all Composure tests while engaged in a hostile situation. This quality can be taken up to three times, increasing the modifier by 1 each time. This quality does not offer any benefit versus spells or critter powers.”
    Contact (AM and Bobby): For their intervention on behalf of his wife and son, AM and Bobby get Clive Clarke as a free contact. He sells shoes and tries to keep his family together. He’s not that useful but he will religiously pay Bobby ¥20 a week for six months even if it means he has to skip meals to do so. Connection 1 / Loyalty 4 (Bobby), Loyalty 5 (AM).
    For Knowledge, I’m increaseing Small Unit Tactics (seems fitting with watching gang warfare), Gang Knowledge (dito) and add a point of Chemistry.
    From my 20 karma I still have left over, I’m spending 2 on Animal Handling 1, 2 on Artisan 1, 2 on Running 1, 2 on Swimming 1 and another 2 on First Aid 1, leaving me with 10 Karma in reserve. Those go to increase my Flesh Crafter to III


    Chapter 5:

    Karma: 42 -1(Traded to Green Toes)

    7 knowledge karma to be spent on Academic / Professional knowledge skills, or contacts related to those

    7 knowledge karma to be spent on Language / Street knowledge skills, or contacts related to those

    7 knowledge karma to be spent on Interest knowledge skills, or contacts related to those

    I’m using the knowledge karma to raise:

    Gangs 2 to 3 (3 Karma)

    Military 3 to 4 (4 Karma)

    Japanese – to 2 (3 Karma)

    Marketing 1 to 2 (2 Karma)

    Magical Threats 4 to 5 (5 Karma)

    Small Unit Tactics 3 to 4 (4 Karma)

    Normal Karma:

    Increase AGI from 2 to 3 (15 Karma)

    SHOOT FIRST, DON’T ASK QUESTIONS Quality (4 Karma)

    Skill Group Influence (5 Karma)

    I’m also spending 15 Karma to get the Beast’s Way (Discount as I already have a Mentor Spirit)

    I’m dedicating my Astral Perception, Killing Hands and Combat Sense as Discounted and use the free 0,5 to acquire Keratin Control (Yeah, Bobby can now grow thick fur around his nether regions to keep them warm and somewhat decent…)

    That leaves 2 Karma to spend at a later time

    Money: (10.050 + 3.333)*0,85 +20 -300 – 1.850 – 3.400 = 5.876 Nuyen

    Bobby wants to buy himself a trode patch (w/cover) to communicate easier while transformed for 1500. Leaving 4373 Nuyen.

    4000 of those, Bobby will lend to AM to help her reduce her debt quicker, 373 go to money on hand



    Attributes:

    BOD 5
    REA 2(5) (10 Karma)
    AGI 3 (10 Karma)
    STR 3
    CHA 4
    INT 6
    LOG 3
    WIL 5
    EDG 3 (15 Karma)
    MAG 7
    ESS 6

    Limit:
    Phys 6
    Ment 6
    Soc 6(7)

    Qualities:
    Exceptional Attribute MAG 14
    Quick Healer 3
    Agile Defender 3
    Mentor Spirit (Beast aka: Shark) – Mentor‘s Mask 5
    Taboo Transformer
    Flesh Sculpter III
    Barehanded Adept (Mind Link, Extended Spatial Sense, Analyze Device, Shatter Shield)
    Elemental Attunement (Mastery)
    SHOOT FIRST, DON’T ASK QUESTIONS

    Super Human Psychosis -2
    National SIN (Sioux) -5
    Did you just call me dumb -3
    Impassive -7
    Poor Self Control (Thrill Seeker) -4

    Skill groups:
    Stealth 6
    Outdoors 4
    Electronics 1
    Influence 1

    Skills:
    Unarmed (Tooth and Claw) 6(8 ) +3
    Spellcasting (Manipulation) 6(8 )
    Gymnastics (Dodge) 6(8 )
    Perception 6
    Intimidate (Mental) 6(8 )
    Armorer (Armor) 1(3 )
    Piloting Ground 1
    Pistols 6

    Assensing (Aura Reading) 4(6 )
    Animal handling 3 (+1 from Beast’s Way)
    Artisan 1,
    Running 1,
    Swimming 1
    First Aid 1

    Knowledge Skills:
    English (N)
    Lakota 6
    Sioux Sign Language 3
    Japanese 2
    Arcana 6
    Magical Threats 4
    Underworld 3 (Yakuza)
    Gangs 2 (Redmond)
    Zoology 5
    Military (Sioux) 4(6)
    Marketing 2
    Small Unit Tactics 4

    Chemistry 1

    Fighting Styles:

    OKICHITAW
    + Sweep
    + Counterstrike

    Contacts:
    Talismonger (Bill Wildwater) 5/2
    Captain Razak (SDF) 4/3
    Lysander (Info Broker) 4/3

    Livewire (Neo-Anarchist hacker) 3/3

    Contact: Katsuo “Andrew” Musai, Yakuza sergeant, at Connection 4, Loyalty 3
    Contact: Jhonney Morad (Israeli Weapons Dealer) Connection 3, Loyalty 1
    Contact: Clive Clarke (Shoeseller) pays Bobby ¥20 a week for six months Connection 1 / Loyalty 4

    Adept Powers (Sioux Tradition) (Initate level 1):
    Killing Hands (Discount)
    Increased Reflexes 3 3,5

    AGI Boost 0,25

    BOD Boost 0,25

    Astral Perception 1 (Discount)

    Adept Spell (Shapechange, Fetish) 1

    Heightened Concern 0,5

    Critical Strike 0,5

    Combat Sense 0,5 (Discounted)

    Elemental Strike (Electricity) 0,5

    Elemental Body (Electricity) 1

    Demara 0,5

    Keratin Control 0,5

    Initiation (Ordeal: Hermit) (11 karma) Power Point

    Beast’s Way:

    +1 Bonus to Animal Handling (+4 for any Animal Handling Tests for Predators)

    Followers of the Beast’s Way may choose from the following skills for their discount bonus: Astral Perception, Berserk, Combat Sense, Elemental Strike, Enhanced Perception, Killing Hands, Magic Sense, Mystic Armor, Motion Sense, and Traceless Walk.

    CLAWS

    The adept taps into his animalistic side and can grow thick, sharp nails like some kind of beast. The Damage Value of his Unarmed Combat attacks increases by 1. Prerequisite: Keratin Control

    Equipment 26000
    Fake SIN 2 -4000

    Armored Jacket -1000
    + ShockFrills -250

    Critter Armor 12 -600

    +Electrical Insulation 6 -1500
    +Chemical Protection 6 -1500

    Critter Googles R6 -300
    +Persona Mod (2 Electronic Packs) -500
    +Flare compensation -250
    +Low Light Vision -500
    +Visual Enhancement R3 -1500

    Comlink R1 -100
    Trodes -70
    Respirator R6 -300
    Survival Kit -200

    Fetish -2000

    Livestyle Medium (Shared) -1850

    1/4 of the Team Car -4000

    Reagents 49 -1000

    Stealth Tags 30 -30

    Medkit R3 -1500

    Miniwelder -250

    Defiance Ex Shocker -250

    +Laser Sight -125
    +Quickdraw Holster -175

    + 20 Taser Darts -100
    +Peronalized Grip -100

    Luggage (good) (Backpack) -100
    + Roll of duct tape -5

    Amorer Toolkit -500
    Microtransceiver -100

    Trode Patch (w/cover) -1500

    Money on Hand 2410 (500 Nuyen lent to neighbor to keep his boy alive, 4000 lent to AM)

    Background:
    Recruiting Interview with Specialist Robert Walker:

    Son of War Shaman Yanni “Dark Crow” Walker and Environmental Engineer Elisabeth Miller (official resident).

    Born August 12th 2051 in Cheyenne.

    Developed strong physical magical talent during highschool, was recruited into Sioux Defense Forces at age 17, recommended for special training at 18. Completed tour of duty at [Classified] and [Classified], talent for infiltration and scout duties. Recommended for special operations, recommendation rescinded due to disciplinary problems.
    Barred from further promotions, honorable discharge in 2073. Assessment by Shaman Bill Whitewater indicates severe totemic influence over personality and/or corrupted totem (Hunger/Wendigo classification).

    Self employed tourist guide, private detective and suspected mercenary work.
    Currently in debted to the Tiošpaye.
    Assessment: Ready for recruitment

    Cpt. Razak: Mr. Walker, how are you? It’s been a while since we met.

    Robert Walker: Yeah, long time no see… Could be better, could be worse. Anyone still alive from the 16th?

    CR: The 16th never dies – though no, no-one you’d know is still around. I heard you had some trouble recently? Something about a lost consignment for the extended Family?

    RW: You looking for trouble? Cause asking stuff like that is a quick way to getting digested by coyotes. I’ve got nothing to do with those assholes since Charlie took over.

    CR: Fair enough. But you are still looking for gainful employment, aren’t you? See kid, I always had a week spot for you and your abilities. A real shame that those pencil pushers couldn’t overlook that little scuffle you had with Seargent What’s-his-name.

    RW: Ha. Asshole deserved it.

    CR: Well, maybe you didn’t have to turn into a Chimpanzee, knock him out and throw your own feces at him.

    RW: Didn’t have to – wanted.

    CR: *Sigh* – Just for your information, it took me considerable effort to prevent them from just throwing you into prison and losing the key. The honorable discharge was the best I could do for you.

    RW: And my eternal gratitude it has ensured. What do you want? I’ve got a child’s birthday party to entertain and need to get into character soon.

    CR: How would you like to work for a real PI agency? In Seattle. A regular income, no troubles with the NAN authorities, interesting jobs and a new start?

    RW: Yeah – what’s the catch?

    CR: From time to time you’d be approached by someone who gives you a job you can’t refuse – still payed of course.

    RW: So black ops on forreign soil? Eh, what the hell, I’m in. At least it can’t be as boring as the shit I do right here…

  • beta

    Organizer
    March 5, 2020 at 4:15 pm

    What the frag, another post that didn’t show up?

    Jawsey buying casting and summoning up a point. Haven’t updated character sheet yet, but included in the rolls below

    summon: 8d6t5 4

    spirit resist: 3d6t5 2

    drainresist vs 4: 13d6t5 6

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 5, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    @beta, which post got eaten? Is there anything I’m missing?

    Summoning Red Jacket Boy is a bit overkill; given the pounding, Jawsey would feel confident that Bobby would hear the conversation and relay it to AM. If you want to go that route for RP purposes, then we won’t have it cost a service. You can have Red Jacket Boy on standby with two services.

  • beta

    Organizer
    March 5, 2020 at 4:49 pm

    The original post with the summoning roles.

    And yes, I was just using summoning a spirit as some fun.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 6, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    IC post is up. I’ve included some details of what I think you might notice if you rolled for Perception. If you want to roll and ask about something specific, feel free to do so.

    The team doesn’t have a lot of knowledge skills that are directly applicable to the situation, but if anyone wants to roll something (defaulting, most likely), you may.

    Edit: To my knowledge, there is no IC description of Sonja Scholl available. I have no idea about her physical appearance so I made one up. If anyone knows of something that’s canon, please direct me toward it.

  • beta

    Organizer
    March 6, 2020 at 4:37 pm

    I don’t know of any description of her

    default Redmond politics: 4d6t5 0

    And apparently Jawsey doesn’t know anything about her either.

    But maybe he can pick something up:

    aura reading: 13d6t5 4

    judge intentions: 13d6t5 5

    and to see how well he spreads the BS:

    etiquette: 13d6t5 4

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 9, 2020 at 9:29 pm

    The ball is in my court.

    A short aside: as you may know, I’m writing from Seattle proper. As you may have heard, there is an outbreak of coronavirus close to the city and life has gotten topsy-turvy as a result. Many employers (Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) are telling people to work from home until the end of the month. My employer hasn’t gone that far, but my son’s preschool is closing for five (5!) weeks. Today was day #1 of that, which is going to complicate life as we try to patch together child-care coverage.

    In short, if there’s a delay from my end, it’s nothing personal: it’s just the pandemic.

  • beta

    Organizer
    March 9, 2020 at 9:56 pm

    Oh wow, what a challenge that is! I hope that something shifts to make that more manageable soon.

    Jawsey’s suggestion of some gambling money is my proxy for a negotiate roll (in PbP doing the whole back and forth can burn off so many days! So a token attempt to get some extra money up front)

    negotiate with mayor: 13d6t5 2

    But apparently not a good negotiate attempt.

  • gilga

    Member
    March 10, 2020 at 6:19 am

    Negotiation: 9d6t5 3

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 10, 2020 at 2:14 pm

    As an OOC reminder, I try to run things in an open world, sandbox format. You should not feel railroaded, and turning down the Mayor’s offer does not necessarily derail Chapter 5. I can’t guarantee that the alternatives will be as profitable, but saying no is a perfectly valid option.

    I’ll work on an IC response.

  • jack_spade

    Organizer
    March 10, 2020 at 5:59 pm

    I think the offer is actually pretty sweet. We have to do something about the violence anyway – and if we play our cards right, we can get paid by the Braineaters a second time to do this job.

    And depending on what the Yakuza want from us – maybe a third time 😉

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 11, 2020 at 1:15 pm

    Will try to give Beta a chance to say yay or nay before we move forward.

  • beta

    Organizer
    March 11, 2020 at 6:16 pm

    Sorry for not posting yesterday.

    Yes, as a player it sounds like a cool job (although I think we might need to discuss what our creative leash is. Often in these games the social stuff is sort of background, so writing the NPC’s part of a conversation so as to be able to post a whole conversation in one post makes sense. But here the conversations and recreation are sort of the point of the whole thing, so we might need to do things differently?

    As a character, getting stuck between two dragons is about the most terrifying thing imaginable.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 11, 2020 at 7:29 pm

    I have some ideas about how to handle the social vs. NPC side of things, but I’ll save those until we’re closer to the task at hand.

    The nature of the run makes it a bit of an experiment, but I thought it would play well to the team’s strengths. It also taps into some of the stronger veins of lore going back to 4E. We’re staying close to canon so far, with the seed of this job coming from Better Than Bad.

  • jack_spade

    Organizer
    March 12, 2020 at 3:02 am

    One way to do it is to assign thresholds to certain people and roll on the relevant skill first and develop the whole conversation after you know the results.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 12, 2020 at 1:46 pm

    Yes, I had a similar thought. But I’m also thinking about ways to pace things so that this isn’t 3 social rolls + teamwork + Edge and BAM, we can go home. A gun battle or a fist fight has lots of back-and-forth rolls just to resolve a single outcome. Maybe we some combination of Extended tests with various thresholds.

    But, as I said, we’ll wait until we get closer. The team may not go the pure social route, as there are several viable avenues of attack. Think of Iago, if anyone is familiar with Othello.

    I’m going to keep the dossiers high-level because otherwise I’d be writing for pages and pages. The partial IC explanation will be that K-E doesn’t want to share every secret with you. Being vague also lets us fill in some of the details when we get to the RP.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 12, 2020 at 4:40 pm

    We’re in open RP. You have ~3 hours before your meeting with Andrew to sleep more, do legwork, watch videos about how to fly space shuttles, etc.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 13, 2020 at 2:52 pm

    Anything else people want to do ICly over the next few hours? If so, we can skip forward/around.

  • jack_spade

    Organizer
    March 13, 2020 at 3:02 pm

    I assume that the gangs aren’t RSVPing who will attend in the Funhouse, so hitting up Lysander for infos isn’t viable, correct?

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    March 13, 2020 at 3:19 pm

    Correct, they’re not RSVPing, but Lysander would have information about who is likely to show up. ¥300 for info about who’s expected plus the lay of the land.

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