[cantrip]

Rather than necroing a topic, I'll reference this old one:

Putting a new spin on Insect Spirit adventures

The gist was coming up with new ways to use insect spirits - so a bunch of ideas already suggested if you want to check it out.

Thought I'd add my own - especially with some of the story lines possibly coming down the pipe. Also, some of the 5th edition modules also gave some different ideas as well.

Some ideas that aren't just a point and shoot

* Having an insect shaman or fully merged spirit hire the runners:
   ** Hive vs Hive intrigue
   ** A missing member of a hive, or a solitary spirit looking for their friend or mate
   ** Anti-corp mission initiated by a hive (maybe destroy or retrieve data)

* A gang/criminal org has been capturing fleshform spirits and are using them for 'fight night'
   ** The hive is not happy about this and is lashing out randomly trying locate/stop the events

* A hive has modeled themselves in a twisted parody of mafia, yakuza, seoulpa, vory etc. and have claimed an area of the barrens and are enacting their version of bribes, payoffs and other criminal activity

* A free spirit wants to study an insect hive of a specific type and hires the runners to provide protection

* A metahuman cult believes they are an insect hive (but aren't) and are "living" like insect spirits

* A new music band in the area puts on a show and it has the affect of calming an area insect hive that was disturbed by all of the people who showed up for the concert.....the current issue is that when they stop playing the insects become enraged, so have to keep playing until someone can figure out a solution. (this would be more of a one off where the runners are at the show - maybe put on in the barrens somewhere)

* A corp hires the runners to escort a scientist - who is actually a new spirit merge tasked with "fill in the blank" (the corp may -or- may not know about this)

Other ideas?
[edited for spelling error]

[Michael Chandra]

Spoilers for Cutting Black: one of the new insect spirits hires the team to take out an Alpha chasing them.

Edit: So that would be: "A Beta-merge Johnson hires the team to take out a small pack of Alpha spirits." You might want to add a Ghoul bug hunter from Detroit as assistance.

[Beta]

A young mage of mediocre magical power hires the team to find his girlfriend, who has been missing for over a week, ever the explosion and fire at the old plastics factory.

The young mage quickly turns out to be very sheltered under parents protective of their retirement plan.  He's been slipping out of the house at night to roam for a year or so, and has met a wonderful girl.  They've been meeting up in the precarious ruins of another burned out building, where she'd found a reasonably secure second floor room that was hard to access (he'd levitate them up there).

She is a nymph who has been grooming him to become the new insect shaman for the ragtag remains of a wasp nest.  Some of them had been away from their original next when it was taken out and had re-grouped in the old plastics factory.  The explosion and fire there wasn't actually anything to do with them, but they didn't know that and have fled the area and have been laying low.  But she will return to their employer.  At which point he'll probably fire the runners and refuse to pay them for their time since they didn't find the girl.  Hopefully the team either tries to track him down to extract their pay, or have picked up enough clues by this point to smell something wrong.  Either way he'll use what talent he has to defend the nymph, as by this point he can't see her as anything other than his dream pixie fantasy girl.  (happy endings are not likely here)

[cantrip]

Edit: So that would be: "A Beta-merge Johnson hires the team to take out a small pack of Alpha spirits." You might want to add a Ghoul bug hunter from Detroit as assistance.

Nice! That sounds like a fun time! 

[cantrip]

Follow up spoiler for Cutting Black - are the new stats going to be the basis for any insect spirits and just the powers are tweaked?

[BeCareful]

How about this?
Mr. Johnson's company is being subject to a hostile takeover. His boss, who previously had a "We're Like Family" temperament, has recently become almost encouraging toward the idea of assets being liquidated and everyone getting laid off. He's certain his boss is an insect morph, and will even supply the runners with Insecticide-prepared alchemy, fresh from his Vault of the Ages.
The plot twist is Mr. Johnson misidentified his magical threat: his boss is actually a shedu who hopes for getting all the laid off employees somewhere easy for the shedim buddies to take over. Or he isn't infested by anything, and just got offered one big golden parachute. Oops!

[cantrip]

Or he isn't infested by anything, and just got offered one big golden parachute. Oops!

Ha! That's great-so many shenanigans and potential repercussions.