ContactsDuncan Abbey: Fence: Connection: 6 (Team Contact)
A finely chiseled elf of African ancestry and British upbringing, Mr. Abbey is a dealer in art and fine antiques. He keeps an office in Downtown Seattle, in what was once the Queen Anne District, in Manhattan, and another in Tokyo. While he has a penchant for jewelry, Mr. Abbey has a way of keeping his understated and classical, favoring British styles, tie pins, and mechanical pocket watches. Aside from his taste for the finer things in life, Mr. Abbey is a soft-spoken and shrewd businessman who is always thinking about the long game. While he's not above using his status and education to softly bully new shadowrunners, when he sees potential for a fruitful business relationship he does his best to make sure that each party is satisfied, assuming that it won't cut too far into his bottom line, of course.
Rose Delayne (Raven): Fixer: Connection 3
A paranormal investigator turned Ghoul, Raven is a go-to source for information about the Infected, their habits, their weaknesses, and certain goings on in some of the more unsavory corners of Seattle. She stands a meter-and-a-two-thirds tall, is lanky -- as ghouls tend to be -- and has a pair of obvious cyber eyes which help her do most of her work on the matrix. She is a regular contributor to
Grotto1, where she uses the handle "Nevermore." For those who have never met Raven in the flesh, it is not common knowledge that she is a ghoul. Raven is one of the self-loathing ghoul types, and she makes every effort to inform the non-infected and infected alike in her life that she only eats scraps that she buys from street docs.
Father Jim Mallory: Talismonger: Connection 3
A Benedictine Monk by education, Father Mallory is a talismonger by trade. He is large, even by troll standards, of mostly Irish ethnicity, and a man who's quick to smile. A Christian Theurgist, Father Mallory runs his shop out of Saint Monica's Church, a small congregation on the border between the Redmond Barrens and Bellevue. He does his best to keep his finger on the pulse of his corner of Seattle, but given that everything he hears is filtered through his own worldview, sometimes some of the cold hard facts get lost in the translation.
Nori Koizumi: Blogger/Reporter: Connection 4
Information is the game. The saying goes, "It's not what you know, it's who you know," and Ms. Koizumi would disagree vehemently.
"Without the 'who,' there is no 'what,' but it's the 'what' that pays the bills," she would say. And pay the bills it does. Ms. Koizumi writes for a number of scream sheets as well as a few of the more reputable sources, and she's got the list of clients to back those stories up. She favors any stories with a hint of the macabre, and it was as long ago as early April when she first opined that something rotten was happening in the shadows of the Infected. In her early 20s, Ms. Koizumi is plump, gracious, and only slightly over a meter-and-a-half tall, but when she gets a hold of a story, she is tenacious. Ms. Koizumi is a human of Japanese ancestry.
Grotto1: Matrix Forum
Grotto1 is the go-to hub for vampire hunters across the UCAS. Information and tips are bought and sold, with user feedback ratings keeping most of the drek out. Grotto1 is a subscription-based private server, which allays some, but not all, security worries.
Shadow Slang(Add, or don't, the following to your Shadowrun speak as you feel appropriate.)
Chipper n. Weaponized sawdust, esp. in grenade or shotgun round. Useful for bypassing Regeneration and for forcing a vampire to abandon its mist form.
Dust(ed) v. To kill an infected, esp. a vampire.
Lost boys n. Newly turned vampires who have not yet mastered their powers or limits. Not as conniving a foe as an elder vampire, Lost boys are nevertheless fierce and feral combatants who will often feed much more often than is necessary to augment their strength, agility, or magic. Lost Boys also have a tendency to wreak havoc on a specific locale until they are either dispatched or learn to hide themselves more adroitly.
Stake-N-Shake n. The murdering-the-infected version of a smash and grab, Stake-N-Shake operations occur when a vampire must be hit in a public or semi-public venue and the corpse extracted to cash in on the bounty. These operations are dangerous because the vampire's thrall will almost always be present, along with the other dangers of collateral damage, etc. that are present with a firefight in a public spaces. Stake-N-Shakes are often a last resort for powerful vampires trying to conceal their nature because they will often be ingesting food and so cannot take advantage of their mist form power.
Sterling Round also
Sterlings n. Silver-plated ammunition often used for dusting Banshees and some vampires. While sterling silver and plated silver are 2 different things in the jewelry world, this is an example of a misnomer that stuck. The softness of the outer-coating gives these rounds increased devastation against soft targets, but are less useful against armored foes. (Treat these mechanically as hollow-points for DV and AP characteristics)
Szechely n. Pronounced "Say-Kay," by most English speakers in the western hemisphere. In Bram Stoker's
Dracula, the title character descended from the Hungarian tribe Székelys. In vampire hunting circles, it is common to refer to vampires by this name as an insult.
Whip n. The senior and ranking member of a vampire's thrall. Often called a Whip for the nice, sporty cars they often drive, Whips usually straddle the line between head bodyguard, personal assistant, and food procurement service. Often adepts or magically active, vampires refrain from draining the essence from their Whips, as doing so has a negative effect on their future job performance.
Zeke n. See Szechely.
House RulesRG2, with the following exceptions: no target size modifiers for targets that fall into the "Small" and "Bulky" category.
RG6
martinchaen's (RIP) Rigger revamp rules as outlined here:
http://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=17554.0All preferred changes apply.
For Summoning, the limit is the spirit's force or the summoner's astral limit, whichever is higher (JackVII's house rule).
For Alchemy: Instead of Alchemy being opposed by Force of the preparation, it is opposed by Force - Alchemist's Skill. Therefore, an Alchemist with an Alchemy skill of 6 casting at Force 6 or lower would roll Magic + Alchemy [Force] unopposed, but if he were to overcast to Force 12, he would be opposed by 6 dice. This makes it easier to create preparations with decent Potency (Ryo's house rule).
