The Found Arcana – Fourth Interlude [OOC]

  • jack_spade

    Organizer
    August 5, 2020 at 2:08 am

    I guess we are close to the end of the interlude.
    I’ll start my story tomorrow or the day after as I’m currently moving and only have my laptop and little time until my usual work environment is set up again.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    August 5, 2020 at 3:12 am

    Let’s push things just a couple more posts, maybe in fast-forward. Where would Bobby start looking in Puyallup?

  • jack_spade

    Organizer
    August 5, 2020 at 6:01 am

    Latino area first, starting with work- and chop shops, following bikers around and keeping an eye on stuffer shacks.

  • beta

    Organizer
    August 6, 2020 at 7:22 am

    II love the formula development, Gilga!

  • beta

    Organizer
    August 6, 2020 at 2:22 pm

    IC Jawsey is sending off spirits to search. OOC I don’t really plan to roll anything, unless asked. I assume that they will be found more by story elements than by dice.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    August 6, 2020 at 2:50 pm

    Nah, no need to roll. This is just planting seeds to potentially harvest in future Chapters.

    Alright, we’re coasting to a finish here. Jack can kick off Chapter 6 whenever he’s ready. Let’s get another little hit of karma so that gilga can upgrade the ally spirit.

    It occurs to be belated that the award at the end of Chapter 5 might have been confusing, mostly because I’m mixing concepts between games. So far, during Interludes, I’ve been awarding straight skill points. At the end of Chapter 5, I awarded “knowledge karma” which is karma that’s specifically intended for knowledge skills and contacts. If that wasn’t clear, I apologize. I’ll go back to the old method for this reward. Let me know if you have questions.

    Karma: 5 karma OR a skill specialization

    Knowledge skills: 2 points to spend like we do in chargen. Alternatively, if you need/prefer knowledge karma to supplement the Chapter 5 award (e.g. to afford a new contact), we can convert the skill points into some knowledge karma.

  • jack_spade

    Organizer
    August 6, 2020 at 4:54 pm

    Cool.
    I’m saving the 5 karma for now and increase my gang knowledge by 2 (having observed them quite a bit during the last days.

    Next chapter is coming up.

  • beta

    Organizer
    August 6, 2020 at 8:36 pm

    I likely won’t get to character improvements until sometime over the weekend.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    August 6, 2020 at 8:45 pm

    Mato will take the specialization. One of the original house rules was that “Urban” was too broad of a specialization for a city-based campaign, so Lorebane separated it into “Indoors” and “Outdoors”. Mato already has Indoors so I’ll add the Outdoors component. This only applies in Urban environments.

    He’ll pick up Native American Nations 2 as a knowledge skill, representing some of his travels.

  • beta

    Organizer
    August 7, 2020 at 2:00 pm

    Just tucking this here, to not clutter the current game run. I spent a bit of time looking for images of Haida (or the nearby Tlingit) men to steal as an image for Jawsey. Turns out that they are big into facial hair which I think is not so much of a thing with elves? And pictures actually marked as being Haida tend to show elders and/or people in traditional dress who are usually either older or kids, so I’ve not found a lot. Attached (hopefully) are two pics snipped from web sites. I feel like the one with the facial hair would be a good fit were it not for the facial hair. The other looks maybe a little too brooding? (and an observation that while these are apparently pictures from those tribes, if you told me that the one on the left was south asian and the one on the right was east asian I’d have totally believed you, so I’m not so sure why I’m worried about authenticity here?)

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    August 7, 2020 at 2:09 pm

    What about this (Haida) dude? Narrower face (more like elves), facial hair is more like scruff. Not sure if Jawsey is clean-shaven all the time or ever gets wispy.

    https://c8.alamy.com/comp/KCYYDW/haida-carver-with-traditional-stick-and-poke-tattoo-haida-gwaii-formerly-KCYYDW.jpg

    I’ve evidently forgotten how to post pictures. The IMG tags I’m trying to use aren’t working.

  • beta

    Organizer
    August 7, 2020 at 2:18 pm

    Apparently your google-fu beats mine — I hadn’t found that pic at all. I’ll add it to the pool to be considered 🙂 I’m not clear how much elves get facial hair, my recollection was them having almost no body hair but plenty of head-top hair, with facial hair less clearly defined. I guess I could look at some art to see how they are generally being portrayed in recent books.

    (there is a button for adding pics, then it is drag and drop if on your desktop, which these were since I snipped them from larger pics)

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    August 7, 2020 at 2:28 pm

    I don’t think I’ve seen any elves depicted with facial hair in Shadowrun sourcebooks. The Shadowrun Returns series of games had a handful.

    Of course, depictions vary and artists are no more consistent than authors are. Per the lore, all the elves are supposed to perpetually look 25 years old, despite the fact that many are depicted as older and distinguished.

  • gilga

    Member
    August 7, 2020 at 2:39 pm

    Jawsey is also human-looking, so that may explain some facial hair.

  • beta

    Organizer
    August 7, 2020 at 3:07 pm

    @gilga good point — although the fluff behind that quality is that the cosmetic surgeon who repaired his face (and ears) was an expert on human faces and was more worried about making a good face than about how elven Jawsey looked (or possibly Jawsey’s father told the surgeon to make him look more human, but Jawsey never heard that?)

  • beta

    Organizer
    August 7, 2020 at 4:30 pm

    Still figuring out Jawsey’s upgrades post interlude 4, and a couple of questions, one for Mato and one for general interpretation by whoever.

    Mato: those ‘knowledge karma’ points were for knowledge skills or related contacts. I presume any reasonable contact would make sense (i.e. Jawsey might buy up his Private Detective professional skill, and also use point to improving his relationship with his police contact). And, erm, I don’t think I’ve ever used karma to upgrade relationships and don’t remember the rule, will have to look that up (karma =new loyalty rating?)

    General: Would you consider the “Linguist” quality to do its thing on sign language? I’d not even thought about it until today. General ability with systems of language, versus you have a good ear and memory for sounds, more or less? (it really doesn’t matter, I’m just in a Friday afternoon daze, and such thoughts pop up)

  • gilga

    Member
    August 7, 2020 at 4:40 pm

    I would say yes, it is a language, and having a point or two also lets you read and write. So it is not just a good ear, it is a good brain that picks up languages easier.

  • Tecumseh

    Member
    August 7, 2020 at 4:51 pm

    Yes, correct, I had a post earlier where I belated realized that I never explained “knowledge karma” because I had always just granted straight skill points. I took the karma approach so that people could buy contacts instead.

    Yes, any reasonable contact would make sense, so your example is perfect.

    You’ve never used karma to upgrade relationships because the rules don’t exist. Advancement should be possible because if it isn’t then you’re forced to start from scratch with new contacts every time you want a better one. Maybe realistic, but not great for creating a cast of sustained characters.

    Open for discussion, but I’d say [New Ranking] = [knowledge karma]. For example, you could advance an Connection 3 contact to Connection 4 with 4 knowledge karma, or Loyalty 2 to Loyalty 3 with 3 knowledge karma, with a limitation of one rank at a time. A career or a relationship can only advance so fast. New contacts can be purchased for the same cost that they would be in chargen, but must start at Loyalty 1.

    As for Linguist, I’d say go for it. Languages come up so rarely – and get rolled even less – that it doesn’t break anything that we use frequently.

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