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Interesting Fixers

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sidslick

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« Reply #15 on: <09-05-16/1805:09> »
Benny "Finger" Kampowski

Background

Finger is one of the oldest fixers in the business, if not the oldest – in Seattle, at least.  He's been involved with the criminal fraternity for most of his life, starting his career as a pawn shop owner and general fence and fixer.  As extraterritoriality made proper shadowrunning feasible for the first time, Benny's career developed with it.  Now well into retirement age, and still working mostly to avoid having to spend too much time with his wife, Finger (so called because he's missing the index and middle fingers on his left hand) operates a very high-class stable of runners, working on the very cream of the jobs.

Born in 1997 to a lower middle-class family who ran a number of gambling establishments throughout Seattle, Finger’s family managed to remain relatively independent of the many crime syndicates growing up in the city.  However, tragedy struck in 2019 when, at the age of 22, Finger’s family were slain in an apparent robbery gone wrong, in which he lost his fingers to a shotgun blast.  Finger only survived through having worn discreet body armour, and no small amount of luck.

Carrying his family’s business on, he began to hear snippets of information about the individuals who had rained random death upon his family.  Maintaining a private dossier of information, he eventually hired a highly recommended yet unorthodox private investigator to validate the information he had received.  Determining quickly what was fact and what was fiction, the private investigator identified four individuals and their employer.  Finger made some discreet phonecalls, and all five had disappeared within 34 hours.

Finding that he enjoyed solving such problems, both for himself and others, Finger gradually drifted into the fixer business, using his legitimate gambling clubs as a means of meeting clients, determining their needs, entertaining them then laundering his fee through the card games.  Owning a series of gambling establishments means that many people owe Finger money and/or favours, which he regular calls in to enhance his business.  Finger has a significant quantity of information stored within his headware and his highly encrypted pocket secretary, ensuring that he never forgets who owes him.

Operating Style

Finger has contacts everywhere throughout the shadow business – if he can't get it for you, he almost always knows someone who can.  The only goods he doesn't deal in are BTLs and drugs; a runner who asks him to acquire (without good reason) such has probably just wiped any chance he has of working for Finger in the future.  It's not a moral issue, Finger just figures that substance-abusers are unreliable and unprofessional – and he can certainly afford to be picky about who he works with.

Thanks to his high-talent, big-name crews, Benny has his pick of high-paying jobs, and hence has runners beating down his door to work for him.  Working for Finger is almost a status symbol in some runner circles; it says more than words could about your rep and ability.  Finger is very picky about his regular runners, however, and those who screw up are rarely given a second chance.  For the competent professionals, though, Finger is a delight to work for.  His jobs are well-researched and he's adept at sniffing out double-crosses; he supplies high-quality gear and good intelligence.  Finger is, in many ways, the model fixer that everyone wants to work for.  Unfortunately for newcomers, if you weren't running when Fuchi was a world power and Novatech wasn't, he's not interested.
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sidslick

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« Reply #16 on: <09-05-16/1807:03> »
Harry "Flamboyance" Brown

Background

Harry “Flamboyance” Brown was born in Atlanta in 2021, and became the one of the earliest THD students to be employed by the newly emerging megacorporations.  Working for a number of smaller specialist organisations he was eventually snapped up by Geatronics to manage a number of research projects on the use of alternative conjuring materials, as well as the production of quantities of oricalchum.  He gained his nickname sometime in the late 2040s or early 2050s, as he was known for the extra “special effects” with his offensive spells.

Approximately six years ago, Flamboyance was ambushed by a hit squad in his own home.  It is still not known who sent the squad, but Flamboyance blamed his employers – Geatronics – as the security in the company arcology failed to adequately protect him.  Not taking his life, they did something far worse; they beat him to within an inch of his life, then smothered his body in stim patches.  The use of the stim patches nearly destroyed his mastery of magic, losing much of his mana within minutes.

The loss of his magic led to him being fired by Geatronics, and rapidly becoming homeless.  It has taken him six years to find a niche in the underground shadowrun community, and earn enough status and nuyen to undertake a number of initiations to recover his lost mana, skills, spells and magical ability.  It is now at the stage where Flamboyance has almost recovered to the level he was before his attack.

Flamboyance also owns and manages Dirty Rikki's bar.  Not the most welcoming of establishments, it caters primarily to the niche magical community, especially the elven magical community – as such it is often regarded by those outside the community as elitist, a reputation that Flamboyance is willing to maintain.

Operating Style

Flamboyance is very bitter about his treatment by Geatronics and the loss of his magic and status but still loves magical gossip and shop talk, and is a valuable contact for this kind of information.  He makes it his business to know who is doing what to who, where, where and how often – especially amongst the relatively small magical community.  He can also be convinced to undertake the occasional shadowrun, especially is he is presented with magical research or the opportunity to gain revenge on Geatronics or one of its subsidiaries, especially where it cannot be directly linked back to him.  Occasionally, he has also been known to broker the odd magical deal, working primarily as an intermediary and placing his establishment as neutral meeting ground.
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sidslick

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« Reply #17 on: <09-05-16/1808:55> »
Juan "Maddox" Sanchez

Background

Juan Sanchez was born in Argentina in 2006, the son of an accountant and a tailoress.  The oldest of three brothers, he was blessed with a business savvy that led him into business with his father as a junior partner, after graduating from the University of Buenos Aires with a degree in Accountancy and Business Studies.  After his father was arrested for helping to launder then legitimately invest money from a local crime syndicate, the young Juan transferred encrypted documents and a quantity of the newly laundered cash – in the form of stocks, shares and bonds – into his own name, selling them and skipping town.  Buying tickets for his family, his mother and brothers were sent to the United Kingdom to be schooled and freedom from persecution from both the Argentinean authorities investigating his father, and the crime syndicate that they ripped off.  Meanwhile, Juan dropped completely off the radar, for several months, by staying with a number of friends before eventually making enough contacts to buy a new name.

Able to fit into his new persona with aplomb, Juan initially flew into the UCAS, before taking a train journey to Seattle.  Setting up a salsa club, Juan’s Place, Juan dropped his temporary persona, decrypted the documents he had carried in his headware and sent them to the UCAS FBI.  Days later, Argentinean news had reported that the crime syndicated that threatened his life was destroyed – its leaders dead or arrested due to an anonymous tip off from outside the country.

Throwing himself into building and running his salsa club, Juan invariably made acquaintances of individuals from exceedingly shady backgrounds, either requiring or offering individuals with particular skills.  It became a natural extension of his business to ensure that these individuals were introduced in the relatively secluded offices of his club.

These individuals were asked to refer to him by the name Maddox, which became both his nickname, and a codeword that the individual sought to buy or sell skills of dubious legality.  In a career that has now spanned over twenty years, despite a few glitches in his early career, Maddox has turned the business of a fixer into an art form, proving to be decidedly adept at introducing street talent to prospective employers – both short term and long term.  Maddox has also been relatively adept at remaining clear of the influence of organised crime syndicates in Seattle, helping them achieve their aims without pandering to their machinations.  Requiring a steady pool of capable shadow talent with which to further their aims elsewhere, Maddox and Juan’s Place were quickly identified as “protected neutrals” by the major players in the city, ensuring that they were clear of unwanted and overzealous syndicate attention, as well as a good place to do business.

Operating Style

Maddox operates out of the rundown Seattle salsa club "Juan’s Place", which he owns and operates.  He is perhaps a stereotypical fixer; he has fingers in every pie and contacts in every area, though he specialises in none.  Maddox is a busy man and doubtless would lose track of his business were it not for assistance from his son Jose, otherwise known as Ajax, who's a drek-hot decker and long-time runner.  Ajax’s girlfriend Blink, a whiz accountant and cryptographer (and a sterling decker in her own right), is responsible for keeping Juan’s Place books looking legitimate, which allows Maddox to launder a lot of money through his club.

Maddox maintains links with a large body of professional runners, from beginning teams to established professionals through to veteran groups who are semi-retired.  He keeps almost all his runners at a distance and considers very few of them to be friends; he does have quite a few friends in the runner community, but considers it bad business practice to befriend those who actually work for him.

Juan’s Place is one of those places where you can get just about anything you want; dealers and pushers constantly circulate the floor and one of the most commonly-heard phrases in Juan’s Place (after "Hey baby, how about it?") is "So, whaddya need?".  These low lives operate with an unofficial sanction from club management, although they're expected to return the favour by donating a proportion of their take. 

Healthy bribes to Lonestar keep law enforcement officers out of Juan’s Place except on urgent business, so club security is very assertive about stopping any trouble that might attract the attention of the authorities.  Local gangs and wannabes have learnt the hard way about targeting Juan’s Place over the years, with no small numbers of troublesome gangers having been found washed up in the harbour, that now they tend to steer well clear.
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sidslick

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« Reply #18 on: <09-05-16/1810:53> »
Kiniver "Quint" McCullough

Background

Kiniver McCullough was born in Edinburgh in 2006, the only daughter of a British Army junior staff officer based in the divisional headquarters there.  A period of years followed as a “pad brat”, a child of a military family who followed her father from posting to posting, until his retirement in 2027.  Accepting a permanent technical liaison posting to the UCAS Army after his formal retirement, Lt Col McCullough settled his family in nearby Seattle, and threw himself into his work developing infantry tactics around key pieces of military equipment.

Kiniver, knowing no other life than the life of transient military family, spent a number of years trying to fit into jobs, but continued to find herself drifting back to the military, and eventually signed up into the British Army in 2030.  Fitting like a hand to a glove, Kiniver undertook a number of postings around the country and around the world, volunteering for a number of combat roles with the Army, NATO and the United Nations.  However, during a combat role fighting the Islamic forces that had invaded southern Europe, Kiniver was badly injured by a cluster submunition that had been dropped on an enemy position nearby, and was medically evacuated back to the UK.  Eventually losing her left arm, Kiniver’s mental scars took much longer to heal, and she was eventually reinstated with a limited role as a training platoon sergeant.  Although she excelled in her position, bringing much needed realism and experience to her recruit training, Kiniver eventually cracked under the pressure and nearly beat one of her recruits to death. 

Honourably discharged from the British Army, thanks in no small part to the dual influences of her war record and her father, Kiniver returned to her family in Seattle.  She then spent several months in rehab, allowing many of her mental wounds to be treated.  Kiniver began working in Club Eden around this time, and made a good circle of military friends – most of whom were colleague of her father.  Working the bar at Club Eden, she quickly formed a larger circle of non-military friends from amongst the regulars, many of them in different types of uniform – merchant seamen, Lonestar officers, paramedics, and the like.  In fact, her accent and her looks, as well as her “rough and tumble” attitude when things got tough drew many back time after time.  In one famous incident, the feisty 5’4” petite barmaid battered two fighting merchant seamen into submission so quickly, and cowed their cheering friends into embarrassed silence with such a torrent of verbal abuse that club security were required to restrain her for her own protection.  Needless to say, she won much respect from the staff team, as well as many of the regular patrons, and soon found herself promoted into an assistant manager’s role.

Nineteen weeks after the promotion, she won ¥350,000 on the local lottery, and immediately led a buyout of Club Eden.  Throwing herself into role as the new owner, Kiniver quickly improved the quality of Club Eden, and found that patrons – both old and new – agreed with her vision.  Popular with the traditional “uniformed clique”, the club became more accessible to other professionals as well.  Only once did the club receive untoward attention from organised crime.  The mafia muscle men sent to threaten Kiniver never made it across the club to her office – her loyal security and several significant patrons intercepted the thugs, and left them battered and bloodied outside the nearby Lonestar police station, begging for protection.  Kiniver has never been bothered since.

However, she has built up considerable links within certain communities – especially Lonestar, Ares and the military – and although she isn’t “owned” by any of them, she began to make introductions a few years ago as a favour to a few friends.  This escalated naturally, and Kiniver – taking the pseudonym Quint – found herself making a steady side income from such introductions, which flowed into the coffers of the club.

Operating Style

Quint is a petite blue-eyed blonde with a lilting Scots accent, who is 100% pure drill sergeant.  She runs Club Eden, a relatively classy bar in Auburn, mostly as a cover and money-laundering operation.  She no longer works personally as one of the waitresses (much to the dismay of the regular patrons) though she's provided jobs for a few of her regular runners when they've been down on their luck.  Quint is very tough and no-nonsense, but thoroughly trustworthy.  She takes good care of her employees and regulars at the bar, treating them as an extended family, and her favorite shadowrunners are offered the same treatment.

Quint's greatest asset is her network of friends; although her connections within the shadow community are not the most extensive, she has a significant number of civilian friends who return the loyalty she shows them.  Club Eden regulars include Lone Star officers, UCAS military personnel, merchant seamen, doctors and dentists, auto mechanics, university staff, and so on.  This gives her a big support network and allows her to carry on a perfectly normal life; any minor infractions that get noticed by the authorities tend to get “fixed” by her friends.  Quint also handles a significant number of military-related jobs and is definitely a preferred contact for several Johnsons based out of Fort Lewis.
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sidslick

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« Reply #19 on: <09-05-16/1813:19> »
Tommy "Slick" Spinelli

Background

Born in Queens, New York City, Tommy “Slick” Spinelli grew up amongst the tougher neighbourhoods.  Never academically gifted, but both agile and slender, he excelled at sports (especially gymnastics) and a life on the street led to him being streetwise from a very early age. 

His natural talents swiftly led him to become a burglar – specialising in breaking and entering into corporate warehouses on the docks, appraising the goods and then removing the most valuable items for a quick sale.  On the fringes of the Italian community, it comes with no surprise that Tommy quickly became noticed by the local mafia lieutenant, who regularly put Tommy’s skills to good use – removing or planting evidence, planting small electronic items in hard to reach locations, so on and so on.  Tommy thrived on this work, and the introduction to his future partner Vapour – whose skills mirrored and complemented his own – only improved the amount of work he received.

It was not until Vapour got sent to jail that Tommy decided life would be more fun as a legitimate businessman than languishing in a cell.  Upping sticks, he bore a letter of recommendation to Maurice Bigio’s capo.  Naturally, he was received as a friend, and spent several months providing “technical advice” to an upcoming generation of B&E specialists, all the while maintaining the image of a legitimate businessman building up a bar/brasserie.

Operating Style

After Vapour was jailed, Slick hung up his balaclava and grapple gun, and finally went straight.  Sort of.  The Five-Tone Bar was born, a legitimate bar and brasserie popular with the lunchtime crowd.  Slick also runs his sideline business from the Five-Tone Bar and it's a popular hangout with some of the more relaxed runners of Seattle.  The security is discreet, as Slick has strong ties to the Mafia (being close to a few trusted men in the Bigio Family) and few people want to hassle a Mafia-related establishment.  Visible security is provided by Patrick and Yuri, two bouncers (an Irish fomori troll and a Russian ork respectively) who are even more effective than one might expect.  Both are very experienced adepts, a lot smarter than they look, and formidable in a fight.  Slick’s old friend Orlaith tends the bar and she knows half the business-related faces in Seattle.

Slick has no ambition to expand his business significantly, being happy as a mid-level fixer with a comfortable establishment.  He does handle quite a lot of jobs; he has a few talented runners on call, and he specialises in burglary, breaking-and-entering, datasteals, and so on.  Although not a shining light in any major area (and he absolutely refuses to deal in contraband that might get the Robbery Department of Lonestar on his tail, as he has a few enemies there already), Slick does know a lot of the B&E specialists in Seattle and is often a good source of information for those tracking down burglars (although, as a good businessman, he'd never rat on one of his own runners).  The equipment he supplies is usually sourced from the Mafia, and his operation is convenient for them to launder gear and occasionally money.

Most people who work for Slick are working for the Mafia, whether they know it or not.  Tommy isn't an “official” Mafia fixer, but most of his jobs come from the Family, and his regular runners are known to the Mafia by extension.  This isn't necessarily a handicap; more than a couple of Slick’s runners have gone on to very profitable careers within the Bigio Family.  And despite Slick’s loyalties to the Mafia, he knows how to be discreet, and is well aware that his survival (both business and otherwise) depends on his probity and trustworthiness.
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firebug

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« Reply #20 on: <09-07-16/0922:43> »
I'm considering an idea, of having an fixer named Sera, in Chicago, who's actually an AI (SoftwarE Recovery Agent) who is drawn to Chicago because her original programming instilled her with a strong desire to go to places with poor matrix connection and attempt to repair them.  However, as Chicago's issues are more hardware than software, Sera began to reach out to physical people to get work done.  Since purely benevolent beings cannot exist in Shadowrun, Sera's goals are extremely narrow.  She only cares about the connection strength and "overall health" of the matrix, not the people using it.  If illegal activity is required, or if people need to die for a piece of hardware to be recovered, Sera cares not.

At the start, Sera will likely not be known by the Quantum Princess or others who work to maintain the NooseNet, but with her reckless behavior, she will likely be found out soon.
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Sphinx

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« Reply #21 on: <09-07-16/1137:19> »
"Smiley" is a "starter fixer," a skinny runt of an ork who arranges street-level shadowruns and contacts. He likes to meet outdoors near Seattle landmarks, and he always begins each meeting by telling a really bad joke. He cracks himself up. He's friendly and helpful and reasonably honest, but strictly small-nuyen.

"Dominion" is a corporate fixer. He only meets in the Matrix, where he pretends to be an artificial intelligence, using a shifting neon fractal pattern for his icon/persona, always doing business in flawless Japanese. In fact he's a middle-aged black dwarf named Dwight Wilson who's an executive at a major Seattle bank (his business card says "director of market research"). In person, he wears impeccably tailored three-piece suits. He's a good source for information about corporate players in the pacific northwest, and he has a wide range of contacts in the Seattle shadows. He can set up some lucrative shadowruns, but he always reports in full to his masters at the bank, and information about the players' activities can leak to a variety of concerned parties if it's in the bank's interest.

"The Twins" are Joseph and Josephine White, human siblings who always finish each other's sentences without noticing that they do it. They always use the pronoun "we," never "I." One is a magician and the other a hacker, but they try to conceal which is which. They have extensive connections in local magical and Matrix communities, and the international black market. They seem young for the business, but sharp and well-connected all the same. They wear eurotrash fashions and have different hairstyles at every encounter. They prefer meeting in museums or restaurants with decent security and surveillance.

"Wagner" is a large troll with extensive underworld connections. He was a Spike back in the day, then a successful shadowrunner for a while. Titanium bone lacing and cutting-edge bioware made him practically indestructible. He made his rep as a fixer by brokering truces and deals between warring gangs and syndicates. Those things never last, but they seem to last a little longer whenever Wagner's involved. He discovered culture late in life after he slotted a ballerina BTL (he tells the story as a sort of test; it's more than your life is worth to tease him about it), and nowadays you can usually find him Downtown at the symphony, theater, opera, or ballet, where he gets private box seats -- a compromise negotiated with the house after he started buying front-row tickets, obstructing the views of half the theater. Where does a 500-kilo troll sit? Anywhere it wants to. He likes to play dumb, but he's a lot smarter than people give him credit for. He's fluent in Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean, as well as Cityspeak and Or'zet. For those able to blend in, he prefers meeting in his box during a show. For those who can't, he'll meet later in the alley or parking garage and charge double for the favor.

Charlotte Charlemagne (a.k.a. "Charlie") is a retired runner, a former "face," who keeps an ear to the ground and a hand in the biz. She's an elf, but with the human-looking quality. She's a smooth operator, cautious, intelligent, and reliable. Players hear about her first by reputation when she organizes a contract through their regular fixer, later when she approaches them directly with a job offer, but she won't share contact information until after their third meeting. She knows every shadowrunner archetype in the book, and can arrange introductions for a modest fee. She always meets in obscure bars or clubs, and at least one other person in the place is an old chummer watching her back, but good luck figuring out who it is.

Raiderjoseph

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« Reply #22 on: <09-07-16/1720:48> »
The Tall Man (https://de.pinterest.com/pin/415457134347706690/)

The Tall Man is an illusive shadow character and not really a single NPC, more like a Fixer network/joint venture - with a twist.
He (or they) have concentrated their biz on everything magical - be it jobs, equipment or - primarily - personnel. He, or they, appears mundane, does have light Cyberware (sometimes) and no magic items to speak of. Even though the runners rarely deal with the same "Tall Man", they all seem to know all the important details about the team, are well-informed about former jobs and the needs of every runner. And while that might still be easy to explain aways by excessive briefings and a good AR software suite, the disconcerting thing is, ath they all talk and act in the exact same ways:
Rubbing their earlobe while distracted, straightening the collars and sleeves of their shirts (right hand, first, left hand afterwards), repeating the phrase "be that as it may" multiple times in a conversation... Runners who work with him/them for a while will start to notice these things.

The truth is, The Tall Man is a free spirit calling himself Nix (after the fairy tale "Nix Nought Nothing") with the possession power. Nix has, as they always do, a rather complex plan, and he uses the runners (and others of their creed) in order to achieve it. I'll spare you the details here. His possession targets are usually tall, low-level corp execs of small to A-Corps that he picks at random - usually at the airport. He "uses" them for about a day, before letting them go, usually in a shady establishment.

Sounds like Slenderman.
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« Reply #23 on: <09-12-16/0852:02> »
I've found that while coming up with an elaborate backstory for fixers is fun, it also tends to be a lot of work for sometimes(often) very little use. I like having the main outline for their history because that can explain personality quirks, friends and enemies, and what type of contacts and jobs they tend to have for the Runners, but it's a very rare thing that the players will want to know or even actively look into the detailed life story of their fixer. Having said that, I'll post some brief examples of ones I've used or am actively using in my game.

Spencer Craig, AKA "Psycho Skydive"

  Based out of Atlanta, Psycho Skydive got his street name in the combat biking scene of the 2050s-2060s, where as the star player for the Lightning Riders, he got knocked off his bike mid-air and somehow managed to dive-bomb one of the opposing players off their bike in the final moments of the game, a move that is still talked about decades later. And while a number of injuries and replacement parts from his career have left him unable to play the sport anymore, he's still involved as the hands-on owner of his team, training the Riders and scouting for new talent.
  With feathered platinum-blonde hair, a mile-wide smile, and a constant smell of cologne and motor fuel, Psycho Skydive is an adrenaline junkie and motorsport enthusiast for life, heavily involved in the Atlanta racing, combat biking, and urban brawl circuit. He turned to using his connections with various teams, players, and managers/owners to part-time fixing(and being the occasional Johnson) when he saw that a LOT of nuyen was trading hands behind the scenes, and some of it should be used to help out up-and-coming talent instead of lining the pockets of people who barely had any involvement or interest in his beloved sports. With a wild personality and slightly crazy, "Hell yeah balls-to-the-wall" attitude, Psycho Skydive's jobs tend to revolve around motor sports and fast-paced pursuits. However, he has a good heart and good intentions, and will never actively try to screw over a team or hide info from them, and if they do well for him they'll have a solid friend and Fixer in the CAS shadows(and maybe he'll even get you season tickets to the Lightning Riders' games).

The Baroness

  With a low southern drawl, expensive tastes, and even good looks(for a troll), the Baroness seems the very essence of CAS charm, hospitality, and refinement. However, very observant Runners or those who do a fair bit of digging may notice that her accent slips just slightly every now and then, or that it almost seems like she's going out of her way to make sure everyone knows how fancy she is. The reason for this is simple; being a troll in the CAS, she grew up poor and without many of the opportunities that the prettier(or less savage-looking) metatypes took for granted. She's done a lot of things she'd rather not speak of to get where she is, and has made a very concerted effort to forget about her checkered past, even if she can never completely erase it entirely. However, she does a job of hiding who she is and where she came from; as far as anyone who matters is concerned, The Baroness will do.
  If Runners work for the Baroness, they'll be meeting her in fancy restaurants and clubs around the Atlanta Metroplex, and her jobs will take the team all over the CAS and southern half of the continent, though rarely in Atlanta itself("You should never work from home, Dahhhling, it confuses business and pleasure."). The other thing is her ruthless climb to the higher echelons of society carries over to her taste in jobs and relationships with Runners. She prefers professionalism, but if that means a heavy body count or collateral damage, then so be it. Whatever it takes to get the job done is acceptable. Failure is not, and just as she'll treat her main teams VERY well with nuyen, favours, contacts, and other opportunities, she won't hesitate to burn anyone and everyone to the ground if she finds out they've been double-dealing or otherwise failing her high standards.

Timothy Dean Hollins, AKA "Titan"

  If you you were in the shadows of the UCAS, PCC, or Sioux Nation in the 2060s, you might have run across a Shadowrunner called Titan, known for being a juggernaut with a troll-sized combat axe. If you looked up the name Timothy Hollins in the mid 2050s, you might find a professional bodybuilder that went from up-and-coming star to disgraced and disqualified competitor due to a scandal involving experimental muscle-fibre gene treatments. The truth is both are one and the same, and after his name becoming synonymous with cheating on a genetic level, Titan fell off the grid and into the shadows. After a decade of running, he and his fellow runner turned best friend Sal finally hit that elusive big score, earning enough to get some rejuvenation treatment and sink the rest into a little Runner bar in the Redmond Barrens.
  Now, after Sal's recent death, Titan finds himself restless with retirement, and while he doesn't want to go back to getting shot at(or stabbed, or fireballed, or that one time with the Pixie from Hell), helping get jobs for new Runners, and maybe teaching them a few things to help them survive in the shadows scratches that itch just enough to keep him busy. He doesn't get the highest-paying jobs in the world, but the work is steady and mostly honest. And, if a Runner needs some help with physical conditioning or building muscle, Titan has a personal gym and years of experience to will whip any would-be musclehead into fighting shape.
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« Reply #24 on: <09-12-16/1732:13> »
I have my teams know "Jimmy the Rat" (James Dean Ratzenberg), one of Seattle's best fixers. He is known for always dealing straight with everybody he works with, contrary to the opinion his street name appears to have. Somewhere in his forties (fifties?), Jimmy is among the top 5 fixers in Seattle. A human who has some cyber and bioware (datajack, eyes with all the mods [still human looking, though], chem sniffer [avoided a couple of poisoning attempts], toxin extractor, tailored pheromones, and sleep regulator), Jimmy bills himself as a "social engineer" for tax purposes. He operates at the center of a huge network of "friends" that he can introduce to each other "because they might work well together". This allows LEOs at all levels to ignore him when things get all legally complicated, like trials and that sort of thing. This means that his "friends" that go by the name of Johnson wind up paying him about 15% more than whatever they contract with his scruffier "friends" for, and then he pays the runners what they contracted for, which makes everyone involved happy. Always on the lookout for new talent, he leads a mostly mobile life in his Nightsky limo or Stallion helicopter (both run by riggers). He has about 3 deckers on his payroll, so that he can have verified info about his "friends". He is very busy, making  a deal about every 15 minutes for around 18 hours a day. He sleeps for 3 hours a day, and the other three are eating, cleaning and dressing, though he will readily do meal meetings. Most of his "friends" are at a loyalty of 1 or 2, though he does have some at 3 or 4. His actual connection is 9, though he usually takes some time before he will use that for his "friends". (He usually starts off as a 1/5 or a 2/4 contact for runners new to him)
Spooky, what do you do this pass? Shoot him with my thunderstruck gauss rifle. (Rolls)  8 hits. Does that blow his head off?

Lorebane24

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« Reply #25 on: <09-15-16/2214:49> »
Here's my favorite home-grown fixer: Forge

Forge is a shadowy info broker, and no one can ever confirm meeting him in the flesh.  He always meets digitally, or uses agents in his employ as proxies.  Though he does work as a fixer, he also seems to have an agenda of his own, and those in his stable of shadowrunners can expect a higher-than-usual number of jobs involving technomancers, AIs, or experimental Matrix programs.  He seems to have Neo-A sensibilities, so jobs from corporate Johnson's are usually going to involve some personal agenda of Mr. Johnson, as Forge isn't the sort of person that boards like to deal with.  He does a fair bit of muckraking, and most of his more amicable relationships are with those in city politics.  During digital meets, forge appears as a 7 foot tall anthropomorphic figure wearing robes appear to be made of translucent plastic scrolls with LED runes moving all over them, depicting complex lines of code, and wearing a featureless black helmet.

As for Forge's real identity, "he" is a 14 year old girl who is both a technomancer and autistic to the point of being non-functional.  She lives beneath a bar owned by one of her agents, who attends to her basic needs, keeps her clean, and feeds her.  Her virtuakinetic abilities make her autism seem especially sever because she prefers to spend the vast majority of time in VR, where the world takes a form that simply makes more sense to her, and her thoughts are made manifest so that she can express herself eloquently in a way that that other users will also relate to.  Many of her friends are e-ghosts and AIs, and she is terrified by the prospect of Deus's return in Boston, hiring runners to uncover as much information about this as possible.
The power of the Tri-Horse!

Dwagonzhan

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« Reply #26 on: <09-29-16/1557:40> »
My current Fixer.

Faronda "Dynah" Dietre
A husky, but beautiful Oni Ork Vodou shamaness; with deep gray skin, bright silver hair (with just a twinge of red highlights), short, finely honed and polished tusks and a deep Caribbean accent.
Known as a woman as collected as the sea itself; capable of soothing hospitality one moment, and anger of a relentless intensity the next. She welcomes those into her home with open arms, and keeps them in her fold through tactful use of reward, fear and implication (being a known Vodou devotee certainly helps).

As a friend, Dynah is tempers her demeanor and intentions with southern hospitality, and deflects personal interrogations with ease. In business, she is forward with what she wants and will not suffer fools.

BACKSTORY:
Faronda is a native of Alabama but spent most of her formative youth on boats bound for the CL member states and Aztlan.
Despite her unusual heritage (an Oni born to two humans), Faronda enjoyed a worldly perspective and developed a grasp for reading others at an early age. She regularly chatted up the locals, looking for mischief and opportunity while her parents conducted business and trade.

During the lapse of trade between the CAS and Aztlan in 2061 (the Azzies were righteously pissed due to shenanigans pulled in Denver), Faronda and her family found themselves with little regular work, and begrudgingly turned to smuggling. Assuming the alias she used in the Caribbean League, "Dynah" took to the new role with ease, eventually taking over the family business by 2067 (when her father became too ill to continue). Her friendly but intense mannerisms, deep reverence for the local Caribbean traditions and existing knowledge and connections to underworld talent-trade made her a fairly successful smuggler.

In 2073, Dynah was poisoned by a Zobop competitor, and had a near-death experience that changed her life. In the throes of her sickness, a powerful Loa patron approached her, and struck a deal. He would possess her body, giving her the strength to endure the poison as it ran its course, but in exchange she had to leave her existing life behind and do a long-term service for him, directing her to New Orleans. Faronda agreed, recovered, and sold the shipping business to a wealthy man in Atlanta. (much to her family's protest)

Shortly thereafter, she took up residence in New Orleans and encountered a man simply named "Riverstrider"; who took her in as a partner and magical student. In early 2075, the two used their collective pull in the shadows (and Dynah's capital) to purchase a flagging waterfront jazz club, re-branding it "Fonce' Mar'ee" and reopening within the same year. (the club was a known Tempo distributor, up until a CAS federal raid finally closed it down)

Today, it's an open secret among New Orleans residents that the club operates as a sort of underworld nexus...and that's just how the local corporations and the organized criminal fronts want it.

While Dynah is a joint owner of the club, most of the revenue goes back into maintaining it and the rest to Riverstrider. Her main source of personal revenue comes from establishing and maintaining cover identities for any "free agents" (Shadowrunners) looking to live and work in the area. Meaning, she acts as a sort of "Shadowrunner landlord", and keeps her SINless clientele's public cover clean and living spaces secured, in exchange for their exclusive services and a monthly fee.

To facilitate this, Dynah creates and quietly distributes Govi to her client shadowrunners' homes. (astral security, also lets her know when they are around)
Additionally, she employs a few "pest control" specialists to keep tabs on those who might be investigating the runners, or snooping around their neighborhood(s).

Most of her revenue from this gets re-invested into underworld deals for material and information. Through this process, she has (over time) acquired a reputation as a very reliable fixer.
If she can't broker your deal herself, she can certainly find the person who will.
"You haven't truly lived until you've had a Cortex bomb!" ~Former GM

BigSexy

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« Reply #27 on: <10-07-16/0154:51> »
I think Fancy Derek, the 9 CHA Scandinavian Looking Pimp Daddy Troll some people were kicking around in the forums properly fleshed out would be an interesting fixer...

Fancy Derek: Dig this man. Someone once said: "To err is human, to forgive divine."
Jake Armitage: Tch. What deckhead said that?
Fancy Dereck: I believe that was god -well, no god from the pantheon I worship, but never-the-less, a god.

MollyMayhem

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« Reply #28 on: <11-28-16/1843:27> »
Jason "Arclight" Richards

Background

Jason Richards was born in Montreal in May 2015, the third child of a middle class family whose father was a high school teacher and mother was a nurse.  However, despite the relative comfort of his family home, Jason was always quite rebellious but blessed with the boyish good looks needed to talk his way out of trouble.  Realising quite early on that his charm was an effective means of doing small deals to supplement his meagre pocket money, Jason quickly progressed in his teens to selling drugs to others at school, before dropping out of sight and entering the Montreal underground.

Richards quickly established himself as a “face man” for a small shadowrunning team based in Montreal during the early 2040s, fronting the team when dealing with various fixers and Johnsons across the north eastern UCAS region, in areas such as Boston and Quebec, and forming a solid reputation as a capable crew.  His skill at charming people, and extracting information from them, was put to great use, and Richards – now running under the moniker Arclight – built an impressive number of contacts over a relatively short amount of time.

This all changed on the night of 14th November 2046.  A small datasteal job against a small Ares site went desperately wrong, based on faulty information acquired by Arclight.  As the team attempted to access the site, the team were disabled by a virulent gas and apprehended.  Arclight – on overwatch at the time – was mortified, as he had been utterly duped and this had led to the loss of his team.  Fleeing the site, he effectively dropped out of sight for 72 hours, acquiring false travel documents and a significant quantity of cash, before buying a second hand car and driving out of Montreal towards the other side of the continent.

Arriving in Seattle after several minor “incidents”, Arclight drifted back into the shadows within days, using a few remaining (and trustworthy) contacts from his Montreal days to get him introductions into Seattle’s circuit.  Again, using his boyish good looks and charm to distract, deceive and gain information, Arclight began rebuilding his damaged reputation, eventually earning enough to purchase a set of cybereyes and some headware.  However, something in Arclight had changed, and he had become a little more cynical and hardbitten.  Seeking thrills on his down time, it was in mid-2047 that Arclight started his love-hate relationship with gambling, that would later come to dominate his life.  Often using casinos and gambling dens as legitimate meeting places for other fixers, Johnsons and team members, Arclight would often place a wager or two.  However, as with most gamblers, his luck was usually bad than good, and he started to run up some fairly significant debts, leading him into a number of scrapes with casino heavies and to take on riskier jobs for higher pay.  Only through his charm and his use to certain mobsters did he walk out of several casinos at all.

Operating Style

Arclight is a human male in his early forties with short blonde hair that's starting to go white at the temples.  A well trimmed goatee adorns his friendly face, which is often found wearing a smile.  A pair of blue chrome cyber eyes harking back to his days of running the shadows, something that gives a striking contrast to his otherwise impeccable dress and appearance.  For all his boyish good looks, a few wrinkles have still managed to creep into his features, tell tale signs of the all too constant stress of being in debt to one mob boss or another.

Arclight's one of the pros, a fixer at the top of his game, with connections all over the Seattle area.  Unfortunately, he also has a gambling problem, something that has kept him in debt a little too often for comfort and has also hampered his otherwise great street rep.

Fixers like Arclight are a diamond in the rough, a fixer that's willing to stick his neck out for his runners, go that extra mile, dig around a little and do what he can to keep the teams he finds work for from becoming next weeks special at the local chop shop.  This comes from the fact that Arclight used to work the other side of the fence, was once the runner on the other side of the table, getting paid to do the corps dirty work.  He still does in a way, but as time wore on, his connections grew, and his age started to creep up on him, he decided it was time to sit back and pass the work forward.  He's also sharp as a tack, extremely resourceful, and always tries to stay one step ahead of the game with connections that tend to give him the heads up on what's going on in the shadows.

Arclight tends to go through small time teams when doing biz, having them drop off gear, run errands, and so on.  The small time stuff will tend to be errands he needs run and generally won't pay much.  He also uses such jobs to get a feel for new teams, test out their capabilities as well as professionalism before giving them the bigger gigs.   Unless he trusts who he's working with, expect most business to go through third parties or to be conducted over the phone.  Arclight's not one to generally do face-to-face meets.  When he does though, Arclight will be accompanied by an ork bodyguard by the name of Stone, highly trained, cybered out, and absolutely professional.  Stone's also liable to be the one sent out on high risk errands where expensive gear is at stake.

Sounds familiar. http://shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Teeg

DeathofVirtue

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« Reply #29 on: <12-08-16/1722:23> »
  Mr Armitage:

  A sophisticated looking and well dressed troll?  With a clipped british accent?  Something isn't right here. 
  Don't let his apperance fool you this guy might seem like an english toff on the surface but hes a former neo-anarchist deep cover agent with a bloodsoaked history.
  Scratch the surface and you will find a seriously well supplied network focused almost entirely on being a thorn in lofwyrs side.  If you don't have a rep the odds are you wont even  be on his radar.  If you are though, you will struggle to find a better source of current info (or potential runs) on Sader-Krupps activities and movements, or a more ruthless and opportunistic adversary to him, he has the contacts, gear and knowhow to bring the hurt, but he wont hesitate to dispose of you in a heartbeat if you might jeapordise his organisation or bring back heat.

  He runs a small nightclub in Antwerp mainly for gay trolls and some "select others" called "The Bridge".  Obviously this is just a front for moving personnel and materiel without attracting undue attention, conveniently it also keeps the local gangbangers firmly off his back, after all what doped up ganger wants to start a fight with a nest of trolls?

  If you have something he feels will give his group an edge be it data or shiny new chrome he will pay top NY for it provided it can't be tracked back to him in any way.


  (Sorry if this was a bit unstructured I'm exhausted)
Because if I pass you I wont even leave a breeze.
If you search for me you won't find a trace.
What then do those seeking me say they found?
Nothing.
Zero is nothing.
I am Zero.
What better name for myself?
 -Zero on being asked where he got his name...