Charles Plemons' Blog

Game summary for June 16, 2011; present characters included Bernsen (dwarf combat mage), Tango (ork tank), and Vessel (troll brawler).

After the successful assassination of Enrique Gonzales, the MACHETE team found a political nightmare brewing for Aztlan.  They were provided magical healing and sent on a new operation codenamed LAZARUS RISING.  In response to protests against Aztlan, the government has decided to plant an imposter Gonzales into power, claim the assassination attempt was a failure, and denounce Los Matan Gigantes.  Unfortunately, before any of this can happen, Aztlan needs to recover the corpse of Gonzales and eliminate anyone who could confirm he was actually dead.  Enter Team MACHETE.

Primary Objectives

• Enrique Gonzales – Acquire the corpse of Enrique Gonzales and get away with it without anyone being able to identify it.

• Witnesses – Kill everyone present at the morgue.  Leave no surviving witnesses, video, or audio recordings of your presence.

Secondary Objectives

• Structural Integrity – The clean-up team needs to be able to work quickly and clean up the mess.  High caliber weapons and explosives should not be used.

Bernsen, Tango, and Vessel scrambled to complete the mission.  They suited back up in their military armor and helmets but decided to utilize SMGs and handguns instead of assault rifles.  Vessel purchased a clunker car, and they drove the vehicle to the Los Muertos morgue.  Bernsen and Vessel investigated the side doors while Tango strolled in the front.  He walked into the office and began quizzing the receptionist at gunpoint.  Meanwhile, Vessel tried unsuccessfully to buzz himself in the side doors.  The doctor on duty called the police when Vessel began bodily hurling himself into the metal doors trying to break them open.  Tango attempted to have the receptionist avert suspicion, but he felt she tried to slip a coded warning to the others in the building.  So, he shot her.  Vessel likewise pulled a pistol with armor-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) rounds and began shooting out the door lock.

Tango progressed toward the family waiting area wherein he had heard crying earlier.  When he opened the door, a man with a machine pistol was covering the door.  A lovely, distraught woman was casting a spell, and a huge, obviously cybered, ork had pulled a sawed-off shotgun from a duffel.  Tango tried to give them the option of running away, but unbeknownst to him, an Aztlan military force had just killed El Gato, their shadowrunning companion.  Mistaking the heavily armored Tango for another Aztlan assault trooper, they pursued him into the hallway and gunfire erupted.

The man with the machine pistol kept a steady barrage of burst fire on Tango, buying time for the woman to hit him with an Acid Stream spell.  By then, the ork had emerged, taken cover at the corner of the wall and shot Tango at close range.  Tango was stunned to find himself badly wounded; the shotgun was loaded with EX-explosive rounds instead of flechettes!

Hearing the battle, Bernsen and Vessel began making their way across the building.  Tango, very injured, slid through a bathroom door for cover.  However, he was unable to go far into the bathroom before the shadowrunners began shooting him through the thin wooden door.  With a loud KABLAM! the door splintered as the ork put one last round through it and into Tango, slamming him into the far wall and incapacitating him.

Vessel moved into the hallway from the other side of the building and engaged the human at point blank range with his SMG.  The man went down in a heap.  In the meantime, Bersen was softening the opposition with magic only to find the woman counterspelling the effects.  Vessel quickly closed with the shotgun-toting ork but discovered the shotgun proved far more effective within a meter of one-another.  Collapsing in a heap, Vessel lost consciousness.

The ork came laughing around the corner and taunting the “little dwarf” Bernsen has he meticulously pushed new shells into the shotgun.  He continued to laugh as Bernsen turned and fled.  The last thing Bernsen saw behind the ork was the woman casting Heal on the downed human.  Bernsen got into the junk car and sped away as the sound of sirens drew nearer, two allies dead or grievously injured left behind.

The above summary is for a game session of Shadowrun: 20th Anniversary Edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.

Game summary for June 9, 2011; present characters included Bernsen (dwarf combat mage), Network (dwarf drone rigger), and Vessel (troll brawler).

The MACHETE team was deployed again following their unsuccessful kidnapping of Steel Hoof.  This time, they were given a mission of assassination codenamed THE JAVA JOB.  The team was tasked with ambushing Bogota congressman, Enrique Gonzales, sole surviving member following the Capitolio Nacional bombing and framing the Los Matan Gigantes for his murder.  The ambush spot selected was the Latte Mi Corazon coffee house.  The team had the following objectives:

Primary Objectives

• Enrique Gonzales – Assassinate Enrique Gonzales at Latte Mi Corazon.  Part of the goal is sensationalism, so be creative.

• Frame Los Matan Gigantes – Leave superficial evidence that would implicate the group to the casual observer.  For example, wear Los Matan Gigantes t-shirts, carry Los Matan Gigantes activist signs, and so on.

Secondary Objectives

• Complete Extraction – Leave the location with all members of the team, alive or dead.  No allied bodies should be left behind as evidence.

• Survivors – There need to be people who survive to tell others how Los Matan Gigantes killed Enrique Gonzales.

Limitations

• Equipment – Los Matan Gigantes is a civilian organization.  You should not use any military-grade gear, armor, weapons, or ammunition.  Firearms should be limited to pistols, shotguns, and low-end SMGs.

The team made up several Los Matan Gigantes shirts and donned lightweight body armor.  They picked up several small arms and rented a getaway van under a false identity.  Vessel poorly donned a nanopaste disguise as well.  Network positioned the van down the street, and Vessel and Bernsen went in and ordered drinks.  They then took up a position viewing the entrance.

Right on time, Enrique and his bodyguards arrived.  One went to order while the rest, including a beautiful young woman, took up seats around the building.  As the ork returned with the drinks, Vessel and Bernsen jumped up with flash-bang grenades.  One of the bodyguards had been keeping an eye on them and shouted a warning.  He snatched Enrique and threw him over his shoulder and ran for the door.  Vessel tossed the flashbang up on a table.  Another ork threw a chair through a window and stepped outside while the third ork bodyguard caught the bouncing grenade and hurled it through the broken window into the street.

The woman jumped up and revealed a cyber-arm with concealed SMG, which she used to burst fire on Vessel as he pursued the ork who stepped outside.  Meanwhile, Bernsen dropped a Fireball on the fleeing target, catching a bystander and Vessel in the blast.  The Fireball ignited everyone in the radius, causing most to drop and roll, including the ork carrying Enrique who was unceremoniously dumped to the ground.

The flames took the fight out of most of the resistance except for the ork outside.  After a brief melee with Vessel, they both drew guns and fired upon each other, with Vessel taking a wound from bullets and the raging inferno his clothing had become.  Bernsen ran over to Enrique, lying unconscious (or dead) on the ground and stuff a flash-bang in his mouth.  At the same time, the outside ork allowed Vessel to retreat and moved back into the coffee house.  He fired his Colt Manhunter at point-blank, tearing a brutal hole in Bernsen’s hide.  Fortunately, Network pulled up outside and opened fire with a Deputy revolver, killing the ork.

Vessel crawled into Network’s getaway van after rolling around to put himself out.  Bernsen dove out the front door with a live grenade behind him.  Vessel helped slap the flames on him out and drag him into the van as Network floored it.  They cleared the corner right as the flash-bang went off behind them.

Fleeing the scene, and screaming sirens, the team dumped the van and guns and started them all on fire.  Then, bleeding heavily from several gunshot wounds and serious burns, they climbed into Network’s GMC Beachcraft hovercraft and escaped.

The above summary is for a game session of Shadowrun: 20th Anniversary Edition played by the Phoenix Gaming Club.