Premise
The premise for this adventure, and most likely future adventures, is where is the horror in the Shadowrun universe? Don't you ever wonder? Here we have a prime example of story lines with Vampires, Dragons, and other super natural creatures. Everything bigger and badder than you in many ways. Isn't that scary? Why are there no adventures that revolve around this idea that Shadowrun is a scary place, and I'm not talking about the kind of scary as man this giant Dragon's going to step on me scary like story driven kind of scary.
Adventure location, Rat's Nest
Johnson, Shadowrider division of Lone Star.
Synopsis:
The runners are at first hired by a Johnson (actually Lone Star) to find out why a certain area in Rat's Nest has caused so many of its Lone Star officers to disappear. He is reluctant to send in any more of his people, as the last thing sent was a SWAT helicopter, armed to the teeth, and even that never made it back. The runners are additionally hired by a Rat Shaman to retrieve what is essentially really old books. At first the runners are confused why such a low tech item would be worth something. However, the books are of particular importance to magic users, not to mention the value of one book in particular. Even in modern times (our time) the book is of immense value. With the advent of ARO and VR, books in general have become a rarer commodity. Once they have broken into the house, however, they discover a lot of dead bodies, and a open door to an underground facility - the location of which is upstairs via elevator hidden behind a child's bedroom wall.
Once below, they find a relatively massive operation involving mutations from the various chemical run-offs that the nearby garbage dump has been spawning, along with a number of awakened critters all housed in an assortment of cages to secured holding pins. The minor corp which had stumbled upon this has been doing research on what the formula is for this transformation into what they are calling super aggressive “demonic” mutation. Throughout the various labs, the PCs will run into data terminals which grant them access to various bits of information; none of the terminals are on the Matrix, and each level of the lab has their own closed network. More pieces to the puzzle are revealed as they move lower into the laboratory. The cause eventually is realized to not be pollution at all, but a demonically awakened creature that resembles the very definition of demon that everyone knows. It has actually been possessing various people throughout the facility, driving them all insane. Though it can manifest itself, it has yet to do so, that is until the PCs discover its true nature. A small animal had been brought in: a basic dire rat, which was possessed by this astral entity, that has been wandering the astral plane, trapped below the refuse of the Rat's Nest in an abandoned tunnel by another set of Shadowrunners back in 2055. The recent upsurge in magical activity in the world has brought it back to the forefront of power.
The PCs eventually learn this Demon has been trying to get out the entire time, by trying to absorb enough essence to manifest in the physical plane. All human and metahuman beings have been absorbed, so to speak, as each was murdered. It feeds not only on the “spiritual” essence of murdered victims, but feeds on the feeling of fear, anger, pain, and suffering. The lab is filled with a variety of other critters not absorbed, tortured, or murdered, but currently being controlled as one of his methods of terrorizing what victims are left alive in the depths.
Edit: The demon begins to follow the PCs in the form of a doll...
