Shadowrun: High Life (Closed)

[Phaia]

Name: Demoiselle Phryne Townsend
Race: Elf
SIN: Tir Tairngrie
Shadow Alias: Eidolon
Build: Slender, 5'8" 130 pounds, 34-22-34
Features: Pale yellow hair and grey [almost silver] colored eyes


...~from the private blog of Eidolon~
...I am still not sure exactly why 'jukebox' wanted me to write this up. He can be very weird and difficult at times but he gets that flashy lights thing going and those sad country songs playing and it is just damn hard to say no... so here it goes. I am from a family steeped in magic from the very days of the 'awakening'. Some that have become well known in various circles. Misttalker the shaman and White Raven I am sure many have heard of and then there is Black Squirrel. No I do not know where 'Squirrel' is at and if I did I would turn his ass in for the bounty.
I grew up surrounded by magic. Spirits in my bedroom at odd hours, magic dancing along the walls and weird smells and sounds echoing though our big old clan estate. That may sound like fun and it was for my siblings and cousins yet for me there was nothing. I could not summon a single tiny spirit nor grasp the slightest magic. My talent seemed to be with music and the computer both of which I lost myself in. If I had payed better attention I may have noticed odd things happened when I was online and linked in with my 'trods'. It happened in '64 with the CRASH 2.0. I had been running the matrix as best I could at the age of 14 with what I had and ...well for now I will save for another time what happened. Needless to say I was in a coma for a week. Funny thing is my family knew I had changed before I did. They used everything they could and saw my astral self shift and change. That was when they realized I to had magic just of a much different sort.
I kept up my violin while I explored my new abilities, only my close family knew what I had become. When I was 18 when they arranged for me to be in an Orchestra  as well as keep tabs on the corps in the Emerald City. So I went off to Seattle and joined their orchestra. Slowly worming my way into various corps I arranged quiet transfers of nu-yen and other things and earned a street rep for my ability to run silent like a ghost...hence the name 'Eidolon' which means spirit.
As good as VR can be and as good as I am in it I feel that it cannot catch the true nuances of music which is why I love to play and sing. At times I swear I can feel the vibrations of my music echoing within the matrix. So it was with some surprise that Aztlan offered me a spot in their Orchestra. Though in a way it is step down to be second chair Violin. They are far and away better then Seattle and maybe one of the top 5 in the world. My concerns are walking into the heart of Tenochtitlan and Aztechnology since the last I had heard one of my kind were still considered terrorists and could be killed on sight. Worst would be getting caught and my brain cracked open to see how I worked.

Of course this adds a bit of spice to the whole thing and Jukey assures me ...he and the rest would help if it ever seems like my pretty head is about to be drilled open for a looky see...
Being a Technomancer can be such fun....


Contact: 'Jukebox'
Loyalty: 5
Connection: 10
Description: No one seems to be exactly sure who 'jukebox' is or even if he/it is a real flesh type being. He is found only in the Matrix, in a hidey hole country bar sim in the Nashville area and always appears as a big flashy jukebox. The whole bar is hidden by a Resonance Veil and one has to know where to go to find it or have found their way there. Eidolon chased a wandering sprite to the place when she was 17. There has at times been 1 or 2 others there when she has visited and all were technomancers like herself. Jukebox seems to be clued into the all sorts of weird and hidden things in the Matrix. He does not really bother with the corps but if you need to find someone hiding in the matrix or some absurd source of knowledge he/it probally knows where to look. Jukebox also seems to know everything there is about technomancers. He seems to know all the complex forms, tricks for helping sprites, what fading feels like. Yet no one knows what he truly is.



okay this is the basic idea for Phryne

Phaia

[Sain]

She would make up for shadowrun not having a bard class You would have points for another high level contact like that it's basically cha*6 for this game (or *10 with friends in high places).

[HopeFox]

Phryne sounds pretty cool! I do like the idea of a technomancer from a highly magical family.

One point, though - Transhuman Prototype is something that takes place before a child is born. It involves tampering with the embryo's DNA in order to give them the bioware or genetech modifications as fundamental parts of their body, just like having lungs and a pancreas. I'm happy with Prototype Transhuman characters - we have one already - but they come from top secret research labs, not ordinary families.

[Phaia]

Phryne sounds pretty cool! I do like the idea of a technomancer from a highly magical family.

I liked it as well and can make up stories about her child hood and have knowledge of magic most mundanes wont.

One point, though - Transhuman Prototype is something that takes place before a child is born. It involves tampering with the embryo's DNA in order to give them the bioware or genetech modifications as fundamental parts of their body, just like having lungs and a pancreas. I'm happy with Prototype Transhuman characters - we have one already - but they come from top secret research labs, not ordinary families.

Hmmm...well how about this as a 'hook' Phryne has no idea that she came about from experimentation...was never told and could be why they family kept close eyes on her as a child. She believes the changes happened as part of her being in the matrix but she had already begun to manifest some of the tecnomancers gifts before that...the crash just 'pushed' the needed buttons.

Should I continue with character ctreation? I found your ooc page with the guide for creating.

I do hope you do not mind a strange contact like Jukebox? I made him so he could be a crazy powerful techno, a strange magic creature or even an AI.

Phaia

[Phaia]

I looked over things and realized I was trying for too much and not staying within a concept. So I will drop the 'Transhuman' and alter the text a bit. I plan on adding in 'Friends in high places' to account for jukebox and then add 2 more tasks to a sprite.

Works good just had to shift an attribute point or 2.

Phaia

[Videospirit]

Hmm, looks like remote control became more difficult in 5e. You don't get to replace your attribute for the test with the command program anymore.

[Phaia]

Hmm, looks like remote control became more difficult in 5e. You don't get to replace your attribute for the test with the command program anymore.

I am more familair with SR3 then SR5 lots of changes to the techno that I am having to wade through and understand how they have changed. Very hard to make a reall good dronemancer now. Not impossible but you have to shift skills to make it really work and even with 46 SPs it looks weaker compared to other classes. Sprites help as i read them but now it seems a techno is more a support class then before. I am still reading things when I have the time and may shift to a full decker class.

Phaia

[HopeFox]

Hmm, looks like remote control became more difficult in 5e. You don't get to replace your attribute for the test with the command program anymore.

Yes, the new Matrix is much more about the hacker's Attributes than about program ratings. Programs with ratings really only exist for vehicles and drones now, and for Agent programs on cyberdecks.

Oh, and because the rules are ambiguous on this front: the Control Device action uses Reaction for piloting vehicles, but Logic for Gunnery and anything else that would use Agility.

I am more familair with SR3 then SR5 lots of changes to the techno that I am having to wade through and understand how they have changed. Very hard to make a reall good dronemancer now. Not impossible but you have to shift skills to make it really work and even with 46 SPs it looks weaker compared to other classes. Sprites help as i read them but now it seems a techno is more a support class then before. I am still reading things when I have the time and may shift to a full decker class.

Yes, dronemancer doesn't work very well in 5E. A technomancer's Living Persona is built in such a way that it replaces a cyberdeck, and it does an alright job at that. It doesn't do a very good job of replacing a Rigger Command Console, especially since running multiple drones relies heavily on using the RCC's Sharing to run programs on all drones simultaneously, and technomancers can't even run programs at all. The other abilities of a technomancer - Complex Forms and sprites - are very Matrix-oriented, and have little application to drones or vehicles.

I think the Mind Over Machine echo is best for technomancers who want to operate one vehicle at a time, rather than lots of drones. Then they don't need Sharing, and can use a machine sprite to enhance that one vehicle.

In any event, go with whatever you like the look of best! A technomancer with some good vehicle skills and Mind Over Machine would make a decent rigger, and could also support the team's decker in the Matrix. A decker-technomancer tag team is a brutal combination.

[Videospirit]

Yes, the new Matrix is much more about the hacker's Attributes than about program ratings. Programs with ratings really only exist for vehicles and drones now, and for Agent programs on cyberdecks.

Oh, and because the rules are ambiguous on this front: the Control Device action uses Reaction for piloting vehicles, but Logic for Gunnery and anything else that would use Agility.

Yes, dronemancer doesn't work very well in 5E. A technomancer's Living Persona is built in such a way that it replaces a cyberdeck, and it does an alright job at that. It doesn't do a very good job of replacing a Rigger Command Console, especially since running multiple drones relies heavily on using the RCC's Sharing to run programs on all drones simultaneously, and technomancers can't even run programs at all. The other abilities of a technomancer - Complex Forms and sprites - are very Matrix-oriented, and have little application to drones or vehicles.

I think the Mind Over Machine echo is best for technomancers who want to operate one vehicle at a time, rather than lots of drones. Then they don't need Sharing, and can use a machine sprite to enhance that one vehicle.

In any event, go with whatever you like the look of best! A technomancer with some good vehicle skills and Mind Over Machine would make a decent rigger, and could also support the team's decker in the Matrix. A decker-technomancer tag team is a brutal combination.

So Techno's can't have machine sprites pilot drones for them anymore?

[HopeFox]

So Techno's can't have machine sprites pilot drones for them anymore?

A sprite could pilot a drone, I guess, but they don't have any of the Pilot skills like Pilot Groundcraft. A machine sprite could do a good job of "shepherding" a drone, though, using its powers to enhance the drone's maneuvers and prevent it from suffering accidents.

[Re Z L]

Name:  Marzena Naumann
Metatype:  Elf
SIN(s): 

• High Life:  Sylvie Elisabet Harper
• General Purpose:  Natalia Theissen

Shadow Alias:  Mouse
Build:  Slender and petite
Features:  White hair, light skin, and blue eyes
Role:  Rigger with a minor in Decking (The deck is rigged!)

Don't believe everything you read on the net, chummer.  Truth is stranger than fiction though, so here's a little story 'bout an ex-ganger what learned to run the shadows.  The Allied German States sure are a nice place to live, an even nicer place if you don't belong anywhere in particular.  In the wake of the Great Anarchist Experiment in Berlin a huge number of folks got pushed out the door without so much as a reach-around or by-your-leave.  Of course anarchists are an interesting bunch, you never can be too sure what might happen next.  You learn to adapt in one of two ways, either you figure out how to blend in or you make the world around you change the way you want it to.  For a mousey little elf girl blending in was the easier of the two options.  Path of least resistance and all that.  Of course blending in didn't necessarily mean going completely unnoticed.

Naturally gangs rose up from the dregs of the chaos, like a thin film of scum rising to the surface of a dirty pond.  Germany, being a long-time center of industry and engineering meant Go-Gangs were a natural fit.  It suited the young elf just fine, she tended to get along with machines a bit better than people anyway--uncharacteristically for a pixie.  The thrill of riding alongside some random Fred on his way to work and running him off the road was great.  Things got bloody sometimes, but the adrenaline rush was just the fix she loved.  Thrills aren't without their costs, though, and eventually the gang was about to bite off a little more than they could chew.

They ran afoul of a group of runners returning from a run.  Probably best that they were returning otherwise all kinds of hell would've broke loose.  When unstoppable bravado meets unmoveable blase then sparks are bound to fly until something gives way.  In this case the gang's bravado didn't really match up to the runner's firepower.  With most of the rest of the gang on the ground geeked or about to bleed out, the little mousey elf managed to quickly jury-rig together a mediocre projectile weapon from some random parts from one of their crashed cycles.  The weapon did little more than amuse the Troll that was lumbering over to her with a shotgun rested on his shoulder.  Amused as he was, and reasonably impressed by her tenacity and technical know-how (especially on the spot) he decided to "keep" her.  This meant that now the Troll had his own personal mechanic, along with anyone else from the Troll's team.  It was less thrilling, but the work was fun, and she even got some steady money.

Stories from the "front lines" eventually got her interested in the idea of running the shadows for herself.  She already knew she'd need gear so she was saving up every scrap of nuyen she could until she could get a deck, an RCC, and a Control Rig.  If it went beep, boop, vroom, or zoom she wanted to be the expert.  The matrix was always a little less interesting than the hardware in meatspace though, so that tended to fall by the way-side.  So she got into the running gig, and a mousey little elf with a handful of drones backing her up is sometimes just what you want to have looking out for you on a run.  She was pretty good, too, good enough to survive at least.

Her and her team were on a run, it was supposed to be a simple smash-and-grab operation that would pave the way for the rest of a run, but they ran afoul of some automated defenses which also alerted the local security team.  The facility was owned by a freelancing engineer that usually worked jobs for various corps that they could keep "off the books".  The fight was rough, but eventually she managed to get control over the defenses, but not until everyone else had already been geeked--her team and the engineer.  The security team was on its way still too so she didn't have much time to recover, or even escape.  When the odds suck and you've got no other options, then it's time to push all your chips onto the table.  She pretended to be the Engineer when the security finally showed up, and with everyone else dead there was no one there to argue the point.  It was a bluff that probably wouldn't have worked if the Engineer hadn't tried to work so anonymously--even the security team had never seen her before.  She felt a little sorry as the security cleaned up and got rid of the bodies of her old team, but they were dead and she was alive so best to make what she could out of a rotten run.

Now she was at the top, so to speak, with a workshop she might have only dreamed of having, and the creds to finance all kinds of stuff.  She still had some work to do hunting down the details she needed to fully take the place of her predecessor, but soon she'd be back to running, you can't deny that adrenaline addiction for too long after all.

So, chummer, that's the way of the Life, you either get geeked, claw your way to a mediocre life, kill a few people to achieve some kind of greatness, or trust to luck and eventually have something fall into your lap.  Course luck only gets you so far, still gotta have the skills to take advantage of your opportunities.

Til next time.

Stats

Priorities

• A - Resources
• A - Skills
• A - Attributes
• B - Metatype
• E - Magic/Resonance

[Videospirit]

Are we allowing Beta and Deltaware at chargen?

[HopeFox]

I've changed the thread title and opening post so that it's closed to new applicants. We're going to take a look at the current expressions of interest and make a decision over the next few days (although it may take a bit longer if some of the existing players are still on holidays). I very much appreciate the work everyone has put into their concepts, and I'm sorry that we only have room for two new players! :(

Are we allowing Beta and Deltaware at chargen?

Yes, betaware and deltaware are available at creation. The only limit is Availability 24 or less.

[Re Z L]

I've changed the thread title and opening post so that it's closed to new applicants. We're going to take a look at the current expressions of interest and make a decision over the next few days (although it may take a bit longer if some of the existing players are still on holidays). I very much appreciate the work everyone has put into their concepts, and I'm sorry that we only have room for two new players! :(

Yes, betaware and deltaware are available at creation. The only limit is Availability 24 or less.

I'll have my bio up here in another 30 minutes or so.

And good luck to the other applicants   

[Videospirit]

I'm not doing a full bio as it would be influenced by build decisions, but here's the basic concept I'm going with in my head.

Qualities:
Transhuman Prototype + Astral Beacon
Trust fund high lifestyle + SINNER

Skills before karma:
8 Computer(Matrix Perception)
8 Hacking(Devices)
8 Leadership(Command)
8 Ettiquette(Corporate)
8 Pistols(Ruger Superwarhawk)
2 Software(Data Bombs)

Skill Group:
Stealth 8
Acting 2


Daddy is filthy rich with strong connections among Horizon, my character(Not committed to Male or Female or Human or Elf) got radicalized by the injustice in the world and built up strong connections with neo-communist organizations while getting high and partying with their college buddies. Doesn't have to work for a living, as his monthly allowance from Daddy is enough to survive on, and is mainly a shadowunrunner just for the fun of it. Was engineered from before birth with Tailored Pheromones and some gene treatments.

Role would be Adept Decker/Infiltration Specialist with some Face ability to help with Infiltration.

Could develop rigging potential later, but that stuff costs too much on top of everything else to start(Drones only need gunnery and 1 vehicle skill at minimum on top of what a decker already has, it's the Nuyen that's the killer).

[Phaia]

well gee nice to hear Re Z L has a rigger that helps me out a good bit since it makes it far easier to build and concept without haveing mind over matter [an extra registered sprite of lvl 6 is always nice to have]
I should have something more for Phryne later just finishing up football with the hubby and have the evening free

Phaia

[Re Z L]

well gee nice to hear Re Z L has a rigger that helps me out a good bit since it makes it far easier to build and concept without haveing mind over matter [an extra registered sprite of lvl 6 is always nice to have]
I should have something more for Phryne later just finishing up football with the hubby and have the evening free

Phaia

Happy to help! 

[Videospirit]

Congratulations to the characters who were chosen.

[HopeFox]

It was a tough call, but I've chosen the new players for the game, and they've all accepted the invitation. Thank you to everyone who submitted a concept - I very much appreciate the time you put into your ideas, and I'm sorry we don't have room for everyone who applied.