The Found Arcana [OOC]
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The Found Arcana [OOC]
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Yes, weekday.
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What part of downtown is the Taco Temple?
“Downtown”, to me as a Seattle local, means the very dense urban core with skyscrapers and AAA security ratings.
“Downtown”, in Shadowrun, is a big district with lots of variety in its density and security.
@gilga So can we get some additional details on what things are like around the Taco Temple? What is parking like, how much security is there, etc.
@Jack_Spade Do we have a way to communicate with Bobby while he’s flying around? Something with trodes?
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I envision several streets with a lot of commercial activity, minor security and low-key crime. Don’t expect gangers driving in cars with mounted Kalashnikovs terrorizing the street, but you can still get mugged. There is sparse police activity, but their response time in case of a major incursion is within minutes.
My IC includes some extra information let me know if there is more you require more, the most logical place to shop is an underground parking lot at the end of the street. The buildings are very high on the first floors as commercial and on top of that housing. No triple A’s arcology or ex-territory in the close vicinity.
As to exact location, I have not given it much thought and am open to suggestions.
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@Tecumseh
Sadly, I haven’t kept any funds to invest in the new Trode Patch that would work on the smaller head of a bird.
Right now, Bobby can only observe and maybe be visited by Astral Form and play 20 questions -
Sorry I’ve been scarce! I went to visit my grandparents for the holidays and the internet was out when I got here, but it’s back up now, so I’ll be catching up on what I missed and posting.
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3 hits are enough 😉
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FYI: I assume that you are quiet because you are enjoying Christmas and having fun. 😉
If you are waiting for me just shout. (well type).
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I’m still checking in regular like.
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I’m in the thick of the holidays. My family has me chained in the kitchen, where they periodically allow me a splash of water and a glimpse of sunlight. I have one more big push to get dinner on the table tonight, then hopefully the next few days are less captive. (Until Friday, at which point I’ll be driving all day to return to Seattle.)
There’s a bit of dissonance in our IC sequence. I don’t know how long it takes Bobby to fly to Tacoma, do his recon, then fly back, but I was figuring that Mato/Ginsburg/Jawsey did the initial recon of Taco Temple during that time before returning to the car and reuniting with Bobby.
Until told otherwise, I’ll assume that if we started at 11am then it’s now early afternoon, maybe 1pm-ish. That gives us another 5 hours before the meet with the seller. Let’s talk about what we want to do between now and then.
@Jack_Spade Black mamba is a reasonable idea. Did you want to do that now or save that for later in the afternoon?
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Yeah, I’d have assumed my part happens when you are back from your recon inside Taco Temple.
I’d go snake immediately after your return, so I’m ready when the meet happens. -
I’m just saying that I think there are still several hours before the meet. Bobby might to participate in the planning, which might be hard as a snake. Plus, depending on the plan, we might decide that a different form might be preferable. It just seems early to transform is what I’m saying.
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Yes, I agree, go ahead and plan you have the time. About the trip to Tacoma as a bird and back. I am not going to be very strict about the times which is okay to have him with you at Taco Temple for lunch (either at 12:00 or at 1:00 or whenever).
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So let’s just say, Bobby came back early enough for the team to go on recon together. Afterwards we can plan in the car.
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Moving the spirit discussion to the OOC thread.
@Lorebane24
Can you share the house rules with us again? I went to look them up but the official forums are down again.It sounds like spirits are limited to the functions of their associated school of magic (by tradition). While this is one way of curbing spirits’ might, let’s be reasonable in our interpretation of spirits services. If we get overly literal then you couldn’t really have a single spirit on guard duty because you’d need a Detection spirit to notice a threat and then a Combat spirit to respond to it. That’s one possible interpretation but it seems excessive.
Let’s review the house rules and I’m sure we can find some reasonable middle ground between power and playability.
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I’d made a local copy of the house rules files. re conjuring:
Conjuring: Conjuring includes the disciplines of summoning, binding, and banishing. A mage can learn to summon up to five different types of spirits, based on their tradition, with a quick summoning spell (called an evocation). The spirit will owe the mage a number of services – the mage gives them directions and the spirit carries them out to the best of their abilities. Each tradition associates a spirit type with a category of spells, and spirits will use methods in that general umbrella to fulfill tasks. If a task cannot be fulfilled as such, the spirit will refuse. For example, a the Hermetic tradition categorizes fire spirits as combat spirits and earth spirits as manipulation spirits. If such a mage ordered each spirit to stop a pair of fleeing vehicles, the earth spirit might create a patch of mud to catch it or raise earthen spikes to cut its axles (depending on its powers), while a fire spirit would simply attack it until it was disabled. Neither would be able to heal a wounded comrade, though the earth spirit could transport them to a hospital. Mages have a reputation in the spirit world based on how they treat spirits, and this reputation affects how out-of-their way a spirit will go in fulfillment of their duties.
Binding a spirit allows a mage to keep it in the material plane for the long haul, send them on remote tasks, and perform certain other special duties. Most importantly, a bound spirit is not restricted in the type of tasks it will perform for a mage. Keep in mind most spirits hate being bound, and frequently binding them will negatively affect your spirit reputation. With a bit of roleplaying, a spirit can be persuaded to be bound willingly (for a time) to avoid this penalty, but they will want a fair trade of some sort.
Game Info: If you summon a spirit, you do not control it. You give it orders, and it will interpret them based on its nature and your spirit reputation. A bound spirit is more or less under your direct control while performing a services, but works as an NPC between services, and they will occasionally try to break free based on your treatment of them.
Banishing is the method of choice for dealing with spirits, efficiently returning them to their home metaplane. It’s not always a one-shot dispersment (sometimes banishing takes a few attempts), but it’s usually more efficient than dispatching a spirit the old-fashioned way.
Learning Summoning: Each spirit type has an associated evocation, which mages learn just as they would spells. Conjurers begin play knowing a few evocations automatically, while mages must divide their “spell slots” between spells and invocations as they desire.
Summoning High-Force Spirits: This is a dangerous proposition. If a mage summons a spirit with a Force higher than their own Magic stat, the spirit will try to break free from the mage’s control each time a task is given. If they succeed, they have the option of remaining on the material plane as a free spirit. In addition to unpredictable but immediate consequences, this creates a lot of negative fallout within the local magical (and often legal) communities, and punitive measures in some form are sure to follow. -
What I would suggest is this: You can task a spirit with anything. However, spirits only happily do tasks which are related to their element.
So if you task the manipulation spirit on guard duty it does not want to do it, it would either use malicious compliance – doing exactly what you ask but not what you mean. Or, try to break free – or require some convincing/negotiation or an offering to do the task it does not like.Would that make sense?
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We seem to deadlock again, LoreBean are you around?
Beta?/Tec – you too seem a bit quiet.
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I have been quiet, sorry. Between the holidays and my father’s passing (and all the associated activities with that) it has been quite a month, and my creativity has been at a low ebb (and this situation is going to take some creativity, I think). But things are finally back to something like normal, and I’m hoping to get myself immersed into this game again this week.
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As to the game situation: I see two challenges for us here:
– We have two characters who are more social/con/misdirection oriented, and two who are more combat oriented, and we haven’t built up enough karma yet for people to have buffed up their weak areas much. It can be hard to combine the soft and hard, so however this goes we may run into situations where we are playing sort of 2 against the opposition. (not saying that all these abilities can’t or won’t be made use of before the end, just that finding the teamwork opportunities is going to take some work)
– On the way to buy the card, our target will naturally tend to be wary given that he is carrying a lot of ‘cash’ and is on the way to get something he values. We are trying to do exactly what he is prepared to resist, so there is limited opportunity to hit him in a weak area.
So this is going to take some thinking and planning for our characters.
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I just did an IC recap, as much to make sure that I’m remembering everything as for anyone else. Anyone/everyone please jump in if you think I missed something or mis-stated something.
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Thanks, Beta!
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