This will, of course, contain spoilers for Ghost Cartels. Don't ruin it for yourself if you are planning to play!
A couple of months ago, I started running Ghost Cartels for our group to give our Earthdawn GM a break. All of us are new to SR4a and a couple are new to Shadowrun entirely. It's been a blast (literally on occassion) despite a few bumps as we learn the rules. It began with me and 3 players but we have been fortunate to add another along the way, and everyone has meshed well. We're all having a good time in-game and around the table.
One of the players has been emailing a journal of what happens each session which has been entertaining and very useful for reference. With his permission, I'll begin posting them here. I would like to add notes from the GM side too. Where we ran into snags, happenings around the table, questions that came up with my reading of Ghost Cartels, and so on.
I would also like to include some information that was shared with players between sessions to give the complete picture. However, some of this info is snippets like runner chat from Ghost Cartels itself. Is that allowed here?
Prior to the game, the players were sent a quick survey to feel out what style of campaign interested them and to gather brief character concept information. Character creation went well, and I left it open to the players to make refinements/changes as we go. No one gets penalized for honest mistakes
For the first night, I ran Food Fight (of course!! I've ruined that Stuffer Shack in every edition.) Bender, the troll bounty hunter, had a 2/2 fixer contact, so this became Dae from GC and the impetus to gather the characters for their first job together.
The starting characters are:
Bender - male troll bounty hunter
Lynx - female elf Cat shaman
Gripper - male human technomancer
I will add some of their character background in future posts.
An Evening at the Stuffer ShackMarch 22, 2071
Dae helped the Troll when he needed it most. Now it was time to pay her back. Tickler’s was quiet, the wage slaves wouldn’t be checking out for another hour yet. He waved to the bartender as he passed by his usual seat and headed to the VIP room for his ‘private show’” The Korean dancer turned fixer was waiting for him and she wasn’t alone. Some scrawny kid in a lousy Hawaiian shirt and a dark haired elf that could give Dae a run for her money in the looks department. He had done some odd jobs for Dae, the most recent on a beastie that had crawled up from the docks nearby, a job most suited to his particular talents. Until now they had all been solo affairs, looks like this one was different.
Whether on two legs or four, Bender was built to track and fetch and that’s what his job was all about. All we had to do was find momma bear and baby bear, a girl named Brandeen and her baby Cody. Dae’s Johnson wanted the extra bodies which was fine as long as the nuyen transfers.
Tracking was easy since The Gripper did all the work. His avatar was Dunkelzahn, only small, cute and wearing a matching Hawaiian shirt. Uncle Dunk tracked her to a motel at the edge of the city; except for a small travel bag her room was empty. We spot the car belonging to Brandeen’s friend at the neighboring Stuffer Shack and find a place to park Large Marge, a GMC bulldog and a gift from a friend. Once inside Lynx our elf friend watches the door while Gripper goes round the far side and Bender heads back toward the slushy machine. This late at night there were only a few shoppers and Gripper got eyes on our payday at about the same time an explosion shatters the front windows. From the parking lot Lynx spots people approaching in Ragers colors. Their voice carries over the crackling flames erupting from Brandeen’s car.
“You jerk! You were supposed to blow it after she got back in. Now we have to go in after her.” It was a human leading the gang, and it looked like they wanted her too, just not in the same condition. “We’ve got company,” Lynx warned the others as our guests stepped into the store. Lynx, closest, struck first knocking the surprised ork on his ass. Bender pulled out his axe and rushed the guy with the AK while Gripper stayed with the girl, the kid and some shmoe whining about his car. (parked next to Brandeen’s) He wanted to leave but there were armed gang members and a troll in the way.
The human was a tough customer; he would have to be if he traveled with orks. He gave as good as he got, landing two blows before Bender throttled him with his shock gloves. His job done he looked up to find Lynx standing over the other two unconscious bodies. Hum, Bender thought, working with a team might not be so bad.
We went back to check on the girl and the others started chatting her up about who she was running from, who was after her, why she ran, blah blah blah. Bender shook his head, the job was to collect a package, not chat with it. There were better ways of getting that type of info. Grabbing an Atomic Slushy Bender strolled to the front of the store, grabbed the human, dragged him outside and locked him to a post. He then started his own brand of questioning. After a few minutes the others put the kid and girl in Large Marge and then offered to help. Bender had his name (Stoob) and the name of his lieutenant (Crush) but that’s about all. I guess ugly can only get you so far. He acted tough but knew he was in trouble. Lynx turned to Bender and asked, “Do you kill people?” Bender shrugged, “Sure.” After that Stoob was very cooperative, confirming that Brandeen was Crush’s girlfriend and had found out the Cody wasn’t his kid. Bender just sat on the curb sucking his slushy through a straw and watched Lynx work the guy over.
With nothing more to tell and sirens in the distance Bender got up. “Are you done with the questions?” Lynx nodded, “yep.”
“OK,” bzzaaaap! He pulled his shock glove away from Stoob’s head as the others stared at him. “What? I needed by cuffs back. I didn’t kill him, did I?” He then returned to his post battle slushy. “Shlerrrrp!”
“What about the cameras?” Lynx asked as we climbed into Marge. “No problem,” said Gripper, “we owned them as soon as we pulled into the parking lot.” Lynx nodded as she called Dae and linked us in. “Do you have them?” Dae asked. “We may, we just have one question, is the Johnson Caine or Carlos?” Carlos was a name Brandeen had given them.
Ballsy move, though Bender. I guess they wanted to know if we were taking her to her guardian angel or the devil himself. Dae seemed to be considering her response, several seconds ticked by before she replied. “The Johnson is Carlos Rodriguez, Cody’s father.
Looks like everyone was happy. Even Lone Star must have been happy finding no dead bodies on the scene. It didn’t even make the news. We made the drop, got our nuyen and went our separate ways.