[Koji Arala]

Would be awesome to hear ideas! I should note that the example of game play shifting based on story above was just that, an example, not actually something I am planning on (though am not discounting either).

[Insaniac99]

It's late, so I can't post to much but here's my first thought:

The team excels at infiltration and information gathering.  That sounds like a treasure hunt.  Have a Johnson pay them to track down and locate an item or plant false evidence type of missions.  To get the more combat side, or get them deeper into the shadows seems pretty easy, make a run go pear shaped.  A random patrol comes upon the group or some of the important rolls are failed and draws guards; the Rigger will probably force the rest.  If the Detective gets IDed just enough to have a "wanted for questioning" out on him then he will have to go deeper into the shadows...  After that you kinda have them where you want for narrative purposes.

[Horsemen]

Let me go over everything that has been posted when I have a bit more brain processing power.  I do have a few ideas including a possible arc that should give each character a chance to shine.  My bed however calls and cognition is trying to leave the building.   

[Koji Arala]

The ideas for the treasure hunt and false evidence planting stuff does sound a good start. At the very least it's a useful tool for the 'ol bag of tricks. The treasure hunt especially jumps out at me given the motivations of their secret employer. All those Earthdawn era types are always looking for this or that super magical doodad (Atlantean Foundation especially); sending some folks to get to "it" first seems like a decent anti-Immortal objective.

Look forward to anything further Insaniac, if you've got more you were up to tossing out there and of course eager to hear Horsemen's ideas when comes the time!

[Horsemen]

Insaniac's points are definitely on target. 

The focus for the group should be on runs that deal with "item" recovery.  They could build a street rep around that and given all four professions you have several ways to bring them various jobs that are always fresh.  As they prove themselves, the job offers get tougher, more dangerous and as such they will naturally feel inclined to branch out on their skills and knowledge to compensate.

Given the variety of places an item could be it gives you some very unique places and settings that the runs can go. 

Even items don't have to be items, they can be based around recon.   Some corp has a super secret lab, go check it out and discover what they are doing.

Provide a standard security set-up at these places with some variety.  It is too easy to adapt the situation to them specifically and in some runs this would be good but if they run into security that doesn't quite fit their skills it encourages them to expand their skills and diversify them.

Another way to get PCs involved is through their contacts via role-playing or via the potential of making a new contact.  This should always be an ongoing thing for characters no matter what they are doing.  Contacts and people don't just come in because they have something of value for the specific run, they are a part of that person's life.

The focus of their jobs should be on soft runs given how they feel about killing but one way to deal with this and allow them all to go a little combat nuts is give them a run where the location's head of security is an A.I. rigger that believes people are too weak and uses drones exclusively.  In such a situation, the adept could be given a subplot due to a variance in the astral space/background count and even spirits from her affinity coming up being really upset about something going on in the facility.  In this case, I would likely make the primary run about one thing and make the disruption about another.  Does the team take on this secondary run to help the spirits or do they stick to what they were hired?  If it is was the latter how does that impact the Adept's spirit relations?

Does Kirkland have any family in his back story?  Another way you can push him deeper into the shadows is have one of his family get into deep trouble; framed for a crime, has a habit that leaves him owing a member of a given syndicate and they've come to him for help.  So what is more important protecting his SIN or helping family.  Maybe the Syndicate decides Kirkland is a substitute and should work for them as payment?  What if a young niece or nephew is taken?  Now Kirkland is coming to his comrades in running for their talents, their aid in resolving this.

Though this last could apply to any of the characters depending on their background.

I'm going to write up an arc idea in a separate post and as I consider the x - y question post other things that come to mind.

[Koji Arala]

Further good advice and suggestions and I hadn't considered the gradual carrot-and-sticking them into becoming more diverse in their abilities. Obviously can't brick wall them with that immediately, but a few things tossed in here and there...

The contacts we've been making use of to some degree. Kirkland and Kyr have a very big RP relationship with their Fixer Mr. Red (that creepy ex-triad wizard I mentioned before). Kirkland has a battery of contacts we've yet to fully delve into, but that's more because we're only on our second run and he has like.. 8 of the buggers of various levels.

The spirit relations deal is a nice touch too, especially in its form as a side-option. Lets me set the prime objective as something that you'd be hiring Gep and Kirkland for, but give some nice astral junk for White-Bear and Kyr to deal with (Kirkland has been trying to learn of magic but Gep is the blatant skeptic and tech-head you'd expect a Vory drone rigger to be so he's not big on exclusively magic centered jobs).

Combat wise, I'm starting to think that.. the jobs should be pitched to them as low-combat, but maybe a few things going wrong. On the one hand, a street gang could stomp some of them, but on the other, Gep has a Steel Lynx waiting in the wings. The big challenge I'm seeing there is what kind of major surveillance target, stolen item, item to be stolen, person to be followed, ect is clandestine enough to require this 4 man embodiment of omniscience, yet not actually be that physically dangerous.

Kirkland has family, but they're distant so far. He was being groomed to be a top tier researcher at Universal Omnitech (parents still work for them), but split from school and dropped off the grid before he finished one of his degrees (given his knowledge, we've established he might have completed a few runs through University). They've found him again and really, anyone who wants to track him down can do so by cracking UO or Aztechnology's data file on him (which is extensive) but his relationship is tenuous at best. Which isn't to say the nephew thing can't work.. pulling at heartstrings would work probably work with him. So far he's been more attached to "surrogate" family types. The team, his old friends from university, ect.

In at least the short term, I've got the group set up to run head first into one of Kirkland's old school friends who's fallen on hard times after he got kicked out of school for unethical experiments and general cheating and subversion of the school. Ended up as a minor independent street doc who's been turning into something of a crime lord by making cheap-o street samurai and cybermuts that'r loyal to him (out of chiphead gangers and stolen neighborhood pets) and hiring them out to underworld sleaze as a sort of street level security consultant.

On Kyr's front, I'm already planning to make use of her background for the next turn in the plot. She established that she had a brother who knows the secret that she's blood related. He's bout to run for Governor of Atlanta back in the CAS, but doesn't want that particular skeleton in his family's closet brought out by the election, so he's contracted a less than scrupulous runner team to take her out and bury her. Said team's leader is instead going to find out how much leverage he has on Kyr and her team during his own leg-work (Threatening to turn in Gep to the Vory, White-Bear to the Sioux military and to go ahead with his contract to kill Kyr) and use it to make the team ruin Kyr's brother's political career instead (happens that the assassin's leader doesn't care for his new employer and believes that his political opponent would be a more profitable business partner to get into office). Not sure how they would ruin his career though and it's my plan for it to eventually be revealed that this Assassin leader is working for the guy who has been manipulating the team all this time. Lacking a great handle on an arc for the campaign though, that's all just disjointed story points.

[Horsemen]

Here's one idea for an arc:

Your Conspiracy Theorist contacts the team stating that the Street Samurai had told him to contact them if he had not made contact with the CT by a certain date.  That date has now come and gone.  He lets them know that the Nigerian was doing some side work for him to pay off an honor debt and the man has now disappeared.  He won't initially say what the Sam was working on but he does state that he is willing to pay them to find out what happened to their comrade.

The CT is perhaps independently rich like Logan Cale from Dark Angel.  For some reason he has money though and this too could eventually become a point in the plot.

In the course of the investigation they discover that the Sam was planning to recover an item from a Vory crew. This gives the Rigger a chance to put the screws to that Syndicate potentially but also gives him a level of personal danger.  The item is African in nature and the Cat Burglar Shaman recognizes it as an item he stole at some point in the past (before the active game) but he also knows that the person he stole it for was not the Vory or the CT as his Johnson wanted it for the heritage value and it was intended to be returned to Lagos with his Johnson.  He discovered this during the legwork behind that particular job.

Meanwhile at various points before this and during it, various spirits keep coming up to the adept disturbed about something though they cannot state what exactly.

Eventually they find the Nigerian Sam in a street clinic where he is in a coma.  The Street Doc owes the Sam so he plans to treat the Sam until he recovers.  The Sam came in with several gunshot wounds and he had been poisoned as well.  He won't be recovering any time soon.  The CT thanks them, pays them and says he may have some work for them in the future.  They gain the CT as a contact.

<Let a few runs pass.>

The spirits now are quite agitated and ask for the Adept's help with the corruption they are sensing.  The wrongness of it and how it is either corrupting or consuming spirits that get too close.  The problem is the spot keeps moving.  The team has to use all of their resources to find the next spot when they investigate they have their first encounter with the Shedim but it escapes before they can deal with it.  They find evidence of ritual magic and several of the items used seem to be of African origin.  After the encounter the disturbance goes away, astral space slowly returns to normal and it would appear that they've dealt with the situation.

<Let a few more runs pass.>

The CT contacts them, he doesn't want to use anyone he doesn't trust and their former comrade awoke long enough to tell him some interesting information.  He wants to hire the team to investigate certain investments that U.O. has made in Lagos or some other place in Africa.  It will make their job more difficult but he will pay more for that. (Lagos information can be found in the 4th edition book Feral Cities but since it is all fluff easily usable.)

When they finally find this secret facility, they discover dark magic again of distinctly African nature ... a type of Blood magic that also uses magical artifacts.  They also discover that there is a particular Wakyambi Elf that is connected to this facility.  This is also the Johnson that hired the Cat Burglar to steal the artifact that launched this particular arc.  They also discover that item is magical in nature and needed to be activated but before it could be activated via ritual magic it was stolen.  They return with the information and get paid.

<Let one run pass  Have the news cover a grizzly series of murders.  Lone Star believes they are after a serial killer..>

Aztechnology contacts the Detective and lets him know that they know about the run to Lagos.  (It should get the paranoia up.)  Someone is practicing Blood Magic.  It is the same person committing the murders but LS wouldn't recognize the particulars of that.  Given the false accusations against Aztechnology regarding Blood Magic they want this person found and brought to justice.  Which begs the question then if they are innocent how does Aztechnology know what to look for?  After tracking down the Blood Mage and dealing with him they find an interesting picture of a shady fellow that looks an awful lot like the fellow that escaped them during the spirit corruption run.  If angled right they could even pick up some Lone Star contacts especially if they allow LS to claim the collar which would further help promote Aztechnology's claim they are innocent as it would come out in the trial that this man or woman had no connection to that Corp.  Where did they learn it though?  How is the shadowy figure play into it?  Is he or she the master and teaching others blood magic?

By now they should be reporting things like this to the CT as he will pay them for it.

<Let a few runs pass.>

The Seattle Vory leave an interesting message for the Drone Rigger one night, someone recognized him purely in passing.  Erasing records don't help with personal memory and such random recognition proves the world isn't static.  They know that he's from Russia and for some reason the Red's are quite interested in him but the Vor here is not all that interested in doing them any favors (given that the Western and Eastern Vory currently have a difference of opinion) but they'd like him to bring in his team to do a job that they pay for but with the added benefit for the Rigger that the news of his whereabouts will not make it back to the Russia.  The job recover an item of African heritage that was stolen from them that has made its way into the hands of a collector but the job cannot be traced back to the Vory or it would start a Mob War.  If that happens the team will be the first casualties.  This begs the question as to why this Vor is trading in African items.

They do the run.  The owner isn't home the night they go in to recover the item (not the same one as initially started this arc) and the run goes off after dealing with home security.  They also have the possibility of discovering that the Cat Burglar's former military squad was the one who stole the item.  That night the news covers the story of the owner's grizzly murder in a most bloody manner that is reminiscent of the Blood Mage Serial murders and the Rituals they found in Lagos.  His squad CO though is not part of the records of the meet with the owner which is odd.  It seems that only those members pulled off the job.

This sets up an immediate second run to find out what is going on as the Vory now believe that this could cause the Mob War.  Perhaps break the news at the meet to turn the item over.  As part of the run they have to break into the LS precinct station to get their evidence unless they've cultivated the LS contacts from the previous run above.  They get enough evidence to prove it wasn't the Vory but not enough to find out the actual murderer.  The Vory are happy, their LS contacts have more info to work with but the one thing they find is evidence that the owner was their to meet with their shadow figure when he was murdered.  No evidence though that the shadowed one did it.

When the CT hears of this he asks them to find out who did commit the murder.  The investigation should lead to the Cat Burglar being contacted by his former squadmates saying they want to meet.  They've heard he was investigating the murder.  They were too and they wanted to exchange information.  They also learned that he was set up so that the squad would turn on him but they don't want to meet in virtual space or do it via comms as those could easily be compromised, that this requires a face to face.  Whether he agrees to the meet or not, Cat Boy should be paranoid but here is an olive branch to at least clear his name which should be important to his honor as a Sioux warrior if not get his life back.

If he goes to the meet or not, his former team never shows.  If they choose to investigate the team eventually discovers the safehouse of the Sioux team and everyone inside has been killed brutally and viciously ripped apart but not in the same manner as the ritual magic though astral reeks of badness.  Everyone is there but the C.O.  Evidence found among the belongings possibly missed in all the bloody mess is that the C.O. disappeared about three months ago and they were trying to find him.  It also indicates that they had discovered that the Cat Shaman had been set up to look like he had betrayed them and set the team up for a fall but not what the evidence itself is.  It does indicate that their former Nigerian Street Sam is the one that brought them this evidence about a month before the C.O. disappeared.  That should lead them on a chase to find the Nigerian, funny thing is no one has seen him and word on the street is that he went to ground after a run went bad.

If the Shaman chooses to not do the meet have the Nigerian phone them and ask to meet in person as he needs to tell them something but not over the phone.  When they go to the meet they find him slain in ritualistic fashion similar to the serial killings and rituals previously.  Captured images show that he found evidence that clears the Cat Shaman, one set of it is hidden somewhere and another he turned over to the shaman's former team to clear his name.  The samurai clearly felt he owed each member of the team and was clearing his honor debt starting with the Cat Shaman.  It is clear from the image captured in his cybereyes or other image recording eye device that the person who murdered him was once again the shadow figure.  Form seen but face not and this should also be the first indication that the mysterious opponent is also quite tall. 

Whichever path from above that they take, it should lead back to the other.

This should give them the urge to get blood on their hands and bring this fellow to justice.  They should put feelers out through their contacts but nothing bears fruit for awhile.

<Have a run or two pass.>

Have the CT contact them stating that a number of odd burglaries and murders have occurred in Portland that seem to be similar to those the team have investigated in the past.  Then for Scat & Giggles have a representative of Lowfyr contact them asking them to deal with that very situation as he is aware they have been dealing with it in Seattle and the political situation in the Tir would cause serious backlash if locals dealt with it so he would prefer they extended their investigation into Portland and dealt with it.  The CT when they go to him for legwork should have a conspiri-gasm and go off on all his little theories.  Let him mark out and muddy the waters.

Have a run to get them into the Tir and Portland and then go nuts.  The investigation should turn up four things of interest the astral corruption, the ritual African blood magic and that there is a visiting delegation from various interests in Africa for three of them.  The fourth is that the Cat Burglar will see his former C.O. and the C.O. will see him but escape before they can capture/talk/interrogate him.  The investigation will lead to a minor official from the Lagos delegation who was also in Seattle or Lagos at the time of the events during the previous murders and rituals.  He even had access to the U-O lab.  This delegate is a patsy for the murders and events in Portland and has been programmed to not allow himself to be taken alive and even has a suicide capsule that he will use. The incidents however stop and Lowfyr's representative seems to be satisfied even though circumstantial evidence indicates the patsy was just that a patsy.

<One or two runs pass.  News gets out on the Shadow sites that several African artifacts on display in Portland were stolen around the same time as the events that occurred that involved the team.  Also evidence should come to light if they pursue the C.O. angle that he split from the team during a job in Lagos.  Have the CT mention at this time that he believes there was a time in the past where magic, elves and dragons once walked and ruled the earth before the known age of man.  That a number of these artifacts many claim to be older than publicly acknowledged and invested with a magic far more potent then what is known today and yet the keys to their access/activation are not usable under known magical theory.  (They use the ritual magic/matrices from Earthdawn.)  That the person most interested in their recovery is the Johnson/Wakyambi Elf they have interacted with earlier.  That it appears that all but one is used to perform a specific ritual.>

However this call is interrupted by a S-K team attacking and capturing the runners.  They are taken for an interview with Lowfyr's voice.  Lowfyr is quite displeased with them for using his job to cover their stealing the African artifacts and causing a diplomatic incident.  He knows they are innocent but he wants to use them as tools to find the real culprit.  They of course plead their innocence and he eventually relents to let them prove it. 

When they are released, if they try to call the CT they get a voice message saying he is unavailable for awhile as he checks into a theory.  Please leave a message.  Make sure he has done this before so it doesn't set off alarm bells.

This leads to any number of runs to any number of locations but they should eventually discover that at least one of the items was taken by the Shaman's former C.O.  Also during this time have the spirits getting more and more agitated and bothering the adept that something bad is coming, something big that could corrupt the astral world as it is known and the very metaplanes themselves.  As part of these runs force a confrontation with the Russian Vory, maybe they have one piece of information that cannot be obtained any other way than to resolve the rigger's past in some fashion.  It should also come to light that the Adept's parents have been backing and paying for the theft of these objects and that they've hosted a number of African delegates since her departure.  These runs should take about a year.  Eventually though they track down the C.O. and discover an insect hive.  The C.O., formerly a wolf shaman had at some point lost his belief and turned to the call of the insect (choose variety), he framed up the Cat Shaman after his conversion as he was the only one immediately that could uncover his change in allegiance.  But he let the team believe that they had been compromised as they were useful tools for aiding him in establishing a hive (where ever the hive is now located) until they unfortunately learned the truth.  Then he had split.

They will learn from him that they were actually allied as someone is using this magic to open a bridge between metaplanes to destroy the world (letting the Horrors return ala Harlequin's Back and that the one artifact that can stop the ritual before it is complete is again the very artifact that started this arc.  Even insect shaman's from what their spirits tell them don't want that and so he had gone after that artifact to try to stop the madman and discover who was behind the attempt.  His information indicates Aztechnology.  But he will deal with that soon enough, the Queen was here and an army would soon arise.  At which point combat erupts and they should run for their lives to escape (if they have not diversified enough to handle it) or clean the hive out.  One way or another though they should deal with or alert someone to deal with the hive and its shaman.  As a personal point of honor though it should be the Cat Burglar leading his team to do it.

Once done with the hive and healed, the team must run against Aztechnology, the evidence found at the hive seemingly indicating a few of the Detectives former colleagues.  The run discovers that they are innocent but have a serious interest in magic rituals, artifacts and blood magic.  They also discover that their old pal the CT has recently come into possession of the first artifact.

So off they go to meet the CT.  Unfortunately when he was off running down his last lead he tipped his hand and was quietly murdered.  A short time later a Shedim found the body and took him.  The Shedim though doesn't want to be discovered and decides to eliminate these associates who seem to know the body far too well.  Nice big battle, runners win though you could draw it out by forcing them to run the first time and then come up with a plan to deal with the Shedim-possessed host of their former comrade.

Once they have dealt with him, they discover the artifact and that in his notes he believes the Wakyambi Elf to be immortal, deranged, behind the ritual magic and intending to open a gateway to some horrific metaplane that other immortals have either tried opening or keeping closed in the past and that the final ritual to open it is soon.  Pick some special event to coincide with the actual date...eclipse perhaps.  What's also odd is that the item bonds with the Adept and that the CT's notes talk about having to close the portal on the astral plane via the physical presence of the artifact and its wielder.  If not closed then a horror will be unleashed on earth that has not been seen in large presences in two Ages.

The detective will have to use all of his skills and contacts to find out the exact location of the ritual.  They then will have to break in as a team and get to the ritual place which happens to be a convergence point for an alchera.  Whereupon they confront the Wakyambi Elf who happens to be immortal, has become corrupted with madness, toxic if you will and wants to end the world and all life upon it so he wishes to see the return of the Horrors because he knows if they come before the world has time to prepare then all will be exterminated.

The final conflict then would have the astral adept using the item focus to counteract the Immortal's final ritual while the others try to save the sacrifices and keep any allies at bay while protecting the adept.  Even if she falls in combat let her use her edge to project from her body, let her blood merge with the focus and that sacrifice gives a power boost to finally seal it before the ritual can be completed.  Thereby the quiet one becomes central.  This still leaves the Immortal and his minions to be dealt with so the others remain equally heroes of the story because if he escapes he can do it again in x time.

Whether you want the Immortal to go berserk and fight to the death with his plans thwarted or try to escape to live to do it again is your call but the PCs should be able to take him down for arc completion and to feel just pure satisfaction.

In the aftermath you can run it a few ways:
- Have a top of the line ID (fake or real) with new identities (their features) complete with a permanent high lifestyle and vehicle attached arrive with a note attached. "Thank you for your service and for your continued silence."
- Have them brought in to meet Lowfyr where he offers them employment as a specialist team for S-K or a nice chunk of change provided they keep their silence.  However, they might consider that they only true silence is dead silence and Lowfyr might well still consider that.
- Have them come out with no reward but for the kudos and warm fuzzies they get from saving the world and whatever they can fence from what they picked up along the way in that final run.

Of course this could lead to tying up loose ends but one thing they will discover is all of the CT's notes are gone and if the PCs kept copies an attempt is made to destroy those as well.

[Horsemen]

Posted the arc above before I read your additional information.  Have the assassin scrub his connection as being the hitter but clearly leaving evidence that the brother hired him for the hit, that the sister lives and then frame him as being the backer behind other assassinations of a political nature or otherwise.  Contrive situations that would leave the brother compromised oh say ala Rob Ford or worse.

[Koji Arala]

Hot damn Horsemen, I was settling into bed and happened to glance at the thread on my phone.. lo and behold, I'm in my chair and the desktop is humming to life again. Can't give a proper response on a P-Sec!

While perhaps, at some points, not exactly what I needed , it's certainly the kind of stuff I'm looking for and vast swathes of it are things I'll easily be able to adapt to my purposes. It hits all the marks of the character's backgrounds and motivations perfectly, to the point I'm ashamed not to have come up with it myself, though I admit, I doubt I've got the experience to have done so. While I'm still appreciative for any other input, might be all I need to get the ball rolling. Love the idea about the spirits coming to the adept. Really that's something that the affinity edges should be causing in the first place (and she's maxed out at a full 5 spirit affinity edges, I let her take one as Ghosts instead of all nature spirits. The rest are sorts you'd encounter in cities: City, Hearth, Prairie, Wind). Playing the White Vor against the Red Vor that way is also great.. I knew about that conflict, but I wasn't sure how to use it for this character. Up to now, it had just looked like more of an obstacle rather than opportunity, a difficulty in getting the Vor to be a threat to Gep as opposed to a means to it.

Few questions and corrections, just in case you don't mind noting how these might alter your original conception of the arc:

The street sam (Mr. Duma), is one we're pretty much just forgetting was ever part of the group thus far. He made it to the Johnson meet and a couple interrogations where he just stood nearby being scary. Having said that, the player wants to come back into the game later when his schedule clears up, so I also don't want to convert him to an NPC that goes gallivanting around causing major plot developments and getting killed. Is the Africa connection primarily on his behalf, or did you conceive of it more for the "cradle of civilization" angle being linked with the immortals, previous ages, so on?

On your serial killer angle, are you referencing the serial killer they tracked down as their first run? I wasn't sure if I missed something about a different killer in reading your arc break down. I did intentionally set the guy up as having the potential to be recurring, so he could blend nicely. They got hired by some middle-manager type whose son went missing while slumming it with some girl in Redmond; their job was just to find the kid and drag back whoever was responsible. Long story short, turns out it was an Astral Space Preservation Society member who went bonkers. Was previously a non-awakened academic, awakened within the background count of the Chicago Containment Zone during a cleanup, heard "a sound from so far away" became obsessed with it, "The Sound" told him how to bring it closer, started using pseudo blood magic to start redirecting mana lines in the area to make a gate, blah, blah. Kirkland, on a hunch, had his decker buddy check out what the Johnson did with this guy, fearing maybe they wanted to use him. He was shipped off to some prison, but there was no record of his arrival nor any signs that he'd escaped or been sent to a research division. Red tape/paperwork wise, he just seemed to vanish.

Being as I don't have the Lagos book at the moment: Why Lagos? Does it have some great significance to a plot of this type that I should be aware of or could another scummy, magic soaked city be substituted with ease?

On the Shaman front, his totem is actually Coyote, he's just a cat burglar in the general sense (sneaky, high profile thefts) as opposed to being a shaman of Cat. Not that important though, what is more so is that White-Bear at least believes his former CO to be dead, which is how he became officer of his team in the first place (field promotion due to the CO's death). It was the Shaman's XO that betrayed him (a ruthless knife specialist adept) by going ahead with wiping out a town (one of those abandoned, crumbling "middle of no-where" towns that dot the Sioux Nation) of what turned out to be innocent people (who a corp paid the XO and the rest to remove), then blamed it on the Shaman saying he assensed the folks and told the team they were a Bug hive. Shaman got the blame for a massacre and was made to seem the one being paid by the corp, the XO got brownie points for exposing a corrupt officer in the ranks. My previous mention of the team feeling remorse would come from the XO and the rest regretting this pinning of blame and trying to track down White-Bear to see if they can bring him back into the fold (with him believing, quite justifiably, that they're coming to kill him and indeed may have had that intent at first). None of this is to say that the CO couldn't still end up fulfilling the same role you originally quoted, which could actually be pretty darned interesting, but it would mean White-Bear's former mentor and father figure seemingly coming back from the dead to be a bad guy (be it actual coming back as a Shedim or just metaphorical coming back in his popping up as a Toxic).

[Horsemen]

My apologies for unsettling you.   

Let me address each point though I will also be asking a few questions for clarification as well.

The thing about contacts and even affinities are that they go two ways and are easily a hook for the GM to use.  It also tends to catch players by surprise when they realize that and go "Oh hell...they want stuff from me too, this isn't all beneficial."  but then I am a believer that positive qualities/traits can occasionally cause difficulties while negative ones can occasionally turn beneficial.

With respect to the street samurai it was a little bit of both.  I've either played or run SR since its release and there really is only three areas I haven't plundered err ahh explored as a GM as fully as I would like in a campaign.  Africa is one but I suggested it because it is quite different from the established norm, has many ancient traditions and cultures that the PCs will be forced to navigate and learn about to succeed.  It has various connections to history that I think are worthy of exploring and even learned about even if this is a fictional setting, it has a foundation in our own reality and history that can be used.  I believe in challenging players to expand their characters and take them out of their depths at times to encourage that diversification of skill sets and if it gets the players interested in learning about other cultures in reality that's a bonus.  The connection to the PC was also a bonus while Africa can still be used as a potential immortal elf connection without necessarily using the typical Tirs and their leaders.  As for his NPC angle does the street samurai have family or is he an orphan?  Turn that angle into a cousin who told the CT to contact his brother.  The CT cannot get in touch with the brother (he took another job that was clearing an honor debt in some region that has him disconnected from society and cannot be found or reached but the CT learned about their association with him.  They of course don't know where Mr. Duma is so on a spur of the moment because he feels time is running out he hires the team.  When the street sam comes back that job deep in-country can account for any bonus karma you give to keep him equal with the rest of the team and he wants to work with the team again because of what they did for his family and then just draw him in with the same events applying to the cousin.

The serial killer Blood Mage was a pupil/puppet of the Shadowy Figure who used him to complete certain tasks that are required for the final ritual.  I was a bit vague on this I realize as most of this was coming off the top of my head as I wrote it.  I tend to do that with arcs then need to think about how to flesh it out. The connection is that he keeps taking pupils that perform these tasks using the same methods so they keep seeing connections between events and the Shadowy One keeps popping up.  I see no issue with switching that up with the Blood Mage angle you have and have it as a sub-arc with the Blood Mage being another reoccurring villian while the Shadowy One remains the puppet master.  Though looking back at it I realized I also crossed the two: the Shedim and the Wakyambi Elf so that may also have lead to some of your confusion.  My apologies, that's why I usually go back after I first lay down an arc to clean it up and fix such things which I didn't here as it was far more a free-flow of thought.

It has feral ghouls, all sorts of tribal politics, unscrupulous practices by Corps and others, insect spirits and pretty much everything else.  The reason why I suggested it really is two-fold: One the African Angle is a nice change of pace and the other is because it is already written up very nicely in Feral Cities with additional information found in a module and with very little effort that material is applicable to the years you will be in.  I'm a big believer in saving on a GM's workload and this is one way to do it.  Another trick I learned is that quite often things published for one edition can be used in another and in particularly SR's fluff set-up is great this way.  Ultimately any city could do though.

Keep the angle on the XO betrayal but did White Bear see his C.O. die or were the circumstances such that it was only believed he died and was reported as such?  It is not uncommon for malevolent spirits to reach out to the dying and offer them their lives at a price.  This could be the case here leading to a shocking revelation.  Change the angle on the team slightly to they discovered the C.O. still lived and for reasons of guilt they decided to reconcile with White Bear.  The XO though set up the meet but then saw the C.O. again and tried to track him down.  That lead to his murder and the team being killed as the C.O. realized his cover was blown and he needed to clean up the loose ends.  It will still be discovered in the end that they wanted to clean the slate with White Bear.  But don't reveal the C.O. being alive at that point, let the reveal occur in Portland as it stands.  The Coyote totem did slip out of my mind, sorry. though it works with either totem.  Just think of the RP as his mentor/father figure is discovered to have had a price by which he was bought and turned into an insect shaman and a rather twisted one at that...after all when the best fall, they often go to the worst depths.  You could even have Coyote drop hints about it that come into focus in hindsight.  A little cliche but cliches can be a good thing.

Anyway I hope this helps and is not too confusing.  It's late and I am starting to fade so I will call it here.  Hit me with any other queries and I will make suggestions where I can.

[Koji Arala]

Nah, not confusing at all, makes great sense.

I see where you're coming from with the Africa/Lagos connection now. Given that right now I'm moving hard toward the group getting tangled up in CAS politics (in the short term at least) and the assassin tracking the group down bases out of Louisiana. More than possible for that whole situation to dove tail into some Voodoun connections and, from there, across the pond into real, traditional African elements. Part of that may be my own bias though, being a big fan of the 'ol Voodoo. Also occurs to me that being in Africa puts the rigger a hell of a lot closer to Red vory than he's been back in the Americas.

As for the Sam: No, no family at all. At least none who he knows of. Former child soldier to some warlord, grew up and eventually became a second to the warlord along with some forced cyber implantation to become his walking death machine. His little character plot was based around trying to figure out who was pulling the WL's strings. His cyber and his boss' guns all came from somewhere and he was trying to shut down whatever it was his boss was doing. He didn't know and honestly, I hadn't fleshed it out yet either given my focus at the time was getting enough character background to inform on equipment/skills and then building up the team's first run. All he knew was that he was being made to train up kids to kill this or that group of people and wasn't gonna do it anymore. If the CT is coming to the group due to their connection to another party, it's more likely that other party is one of their contacts/relatives rather than anyone directly tied to Duma.

If you care to know their contact information:

(All are Level 1 contacts save for most of Kirkland's so they don't exactly have a hugely close relationship)

Kyr
An Otaku ("Bouncer", perpetual sugar rush, known for eating bizarre things like drinking big gulps full of mustard or nacho cheeze. Came into his tribe just after the whole shadow war with Deus and hasn't been exposed to Dissonance followers yet so has kept a cheery outlook.)

Fixer/Talismonger ("Mr. Red," that former Triad Incense Master I'd mentioned before. Common link between her and Kirkland)

Gep
Made Man/Fixer (Alex Giovanni, mobster in Tacoma from whom Gep bought the warehouse that he converted into his house/machine shop. Gets his jobs from the guy as well as a little Land Lord action)

Decker/Information broker ("White Eyes," Vory decker he bribed to do his record wiping when he fled Russia)

White-Bear
Salish customs agent (Eliot Far-Wind, his link back to the NAN. He uses her to keep tabs on the comings and goings from the Sioux, watching out for any sign of a Wildcat team transferring into the country)

City services worker (Russel, hooked up his pirate trid and is just your general sewer/power/cables guy. Hasn't been fleshed much.)

David Kirkland (He's got oodles of these... He knows a lot of them from, as he calls it "The Cheers of his contacts." Local bar where most of his contacts congregate at one point or another)
Fixer/Talismonger (same one from Kyr, obviously. Hasn't been established why he left the Triad or how he's still alive after having done so. Whole neighborhood is terrified of him.) - We've used him for every run so far, he's a pretty integral Fixer character.

BTL/Bootleg simsense dealer ("Nero," as slimy as you'd expect a BTL dealer to be, but has a bit more used car salesman flavor than meth dealer.)

Homicide Detective (Machiko Nogouchi, this being his Lonestar connection. Him being a licensed private investigator and her being homicide, their paths have crossed every so often. She's a stone cold bitch, but, recognizes how useful Kirkland's insights can be sometimes. He tries to stay FAR out of her way at all other times)

Bartender(Initiate in hiding) (Christoph, former Order of St. Sylvester initiate, hiding out from the Templars as a bartender at the aforementioned "Cheers of contacts." Tends to be Kirkland's go-to guy for magical advice, despite the scary mystic Mr. Red.)

Mafia Enforcer ("Mr. Breaker," short, angry little man that Kirkland consults on organized crimes matters. We haven't done much with the guy.)

Decker ("Woodstein," never met the guy face to face and is constantly finding that he's under surveillance by him. Sometimes he'll respond to messages that Kirkland has typed into his P-Sec but not sent yet or chime in over speaker phone on a seemingly private conversation. No sense of personal space, but incredibly paranoid. Is actually a CIA analyst, but Kirkland is unaware of this.)

Smuggler ("Tammy," a Cascade Orks smuggler. We haven't fleshed her out much and he's only had reason to ring her up once.)

Lab Tech (Gerald Silversmith, one of Kirkland's friends from university, actually went on to work for UO instead of dropping out like him.)

Lawyer (Alice Blakewood, the shark lawyer who keeps getting some of Kirkland's suspects off on technicalities. They don't have the best of relations, but can be professional if they need one another.)

Journalist (Technically a writer/camera man for Megamedia, we haven't done much with him yet either.)