Charles Plemons' Blog

Game summary for February 25, 2020, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ballyhoo (Human Augmenter played by Andrew Renfrow), Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team moved further into the greenhouse and were attacked by a ravenous wendigo and two more neo-tribals!  The scout hit Octane with an incredibly accurate shot and hurt him pretty badly.  The warrior blasted away with his AK-97 to little effect while the wendigo hurled a stunball amongst the team, nearly knocking Hollywood unconscious!  Clutch put his drone to good use spraying hails of bullets into the fray.  Ballyhoo hurled acid spells with good effect while Octane fell back and drew his machine pistol. 

The team gunned down the neo-tribals, and Hollywood ran up to one of the bushes closer to the frontlines.  With a target in range, the wendigo charged!  It tried to bite him and rendered him unconscious in its arms.  The group began focuses fire upon it, and the lead rounds began reacting with its natural allergy to ferrous metals.  It screamed and struggled and was unable to escape before the group was able to slay it. 

The party explored the greenhouse and found the survivors of the squatter camp caged in pens.  Much to their horror, they realized the survivors were being used as a food source for the wendigo and perhaps the neo-tribals as well!  They quickly released the prisoners and escorted them back Kaur’s Farm.

Returned to the farm, the group revealed what they found and hung out for a few days to make sure they had solved the mystery of the attacking animals.  Once certain things were back to normal, they collected their payment and headed back into the city.

Game summary for February 18, 2020, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Dell (Human Technomancer played by Shane Bradley), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team nursed their wounds as best they could while Dell scouted the area with drones.  He noticed a Neo-Tribal fleeing into the trees.  An owl landed beside him and shapeshifted into a human.  Both got on mountain bikes and took off away from Kaur’s Farm.  Dell tracked them with the drone to a large greenhouse.  The team took this information and talked to Singh, and they determined this was the remnants of the cult of the Children of the Naked Dawn from the Plastic Jungle.

Hollywood wanted to consult Donnie Hua as well, but they learned he was still unconscious despite some of the healing the team had provided him.  This made them curious, so Hollywood went in and examined him and looked through a few of his things.  He found their employee is likely addicted to a drug called long haul, which keeps you awake long periods followed by huge crashes. 

The group debated a while and decided to take the fight to the Plastic Jungle.  They sallied forth and came in guns blazing.  They took down the two guards at the back entrance, and then engaged a trio of warriors and a shaman!  The spellcaster hurled acid at them, but he was no match to the hail of lead coming at him from the team.  In a few moments, the group was victorious, if not a little beat up. 

Game summary for February 11, 2020, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ballyhoo (Human Augmenter played by Andrew Renfrow), Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team licked their wounds and reloaded, waiting for any further attacks.  Dell’s drones alerted the team to activity across the camp, and the team went to investigate.  A bear-like piasma was charging forward followed by half a dozen neo-tribalists armed with spears, firearms, and Molotov cocktails!  Octane charged into the fray with an amazing leap over several barrels, but the piasma dodged his chainsaw attack.  It then mauled him.  Octane swapped to his knife and engaged a neo-tribalist. 

Hollywood advanced and opened fire on the piasma while dodging hurled Molotov cocktails.  Clutch started mowing down enemies with his roto-drone’s assault rifle.  Ballyhoo began hurling acid at the piasma but found himself dodging bottles of flaming liquid as well.  Octane stabbed one of the men, but he stepped back and flattened a full-auto burst of assault rifle ammunition into Octane’s armor.  The damage was not lethal, but it did knock the elf out.  The piasma spun around and mauled Hollywood nearly to death before being gunned down by Clutch. 

One of the men picked up Octane and started heading for the woods.  Quick-thinking Ballyhoo cast levitate and snatched him to safety!  He fell back and levitated Hollywood as well.  Clutch continued shooting down opponents, covering Ballyhoo’s retreat.  Meanwhile, Bhagat Singh made it into the fray and cut down one of the assailants with his great curved sword.  Suddenly, some of the barrels caught on fire by the Molotov cocktails exploded!  The shrapnel ripped into the last attacker, and Clutch finished him off with his drone. 

Game summary for February 4, 2020, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ballyhoo (Human Augmenter played by Andrew Renfrow), Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Dell (Human Technomancer played by Shane Bradley), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team returned to Kaur’s Farm, and Hollywood used some magic to further heal Donnie Hua.  They reported their findings and were unable to draw a connection between the two sites.  Ballyhoo continued assensing around the area and recognized the spirit pattern from one of the sites in Chaaya.  After some discussion with Hua, examining her aura, and considering his knowledge of magical theory, he conjectured she is some kind of spirit/human hybrid.  How that happened, though, he is unsure. 

He could not sense any hostility in her, and they were unable to determine how she might be involved in the current situation.

The group prepared for the suspected nighttime attack, and late in the evening Dell spotted canines coming in from the north.  Five dogs, two hell hounds, and a barghest came charging in!  A hell hound breathed fire at Ballyhoo but missed.  Hollywood found himself face-to-face with the other hell hound and unable to hit it with his machine pistol in all the excitement.  Octane charged in with his monofilament chainsaw and missed, but Dell landed a solid shot with some APDS ammunition.  Moments later, the hell hound tripped and fell on the chainsaw, decapitating itself. 

Clutch put his drone to good use, firing full-auto bursts from an assault rifle into the fray.  Octane engaged the barghest just in time for it to get gunned down by Clutch.  Ballyhoo continued to sustain his enhancing spells and hurled acid at the foes.  Hollywood finally got a line on his target and landed some shots.  Octane advanced on the last hell hound and cut it down with the chainsaw.  With the last paranormal slain, the other dogs fled back into the woods. 

Game summary for January 21, 2020, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ballyhoo (Human Augmenter played by Andrew Renfrow), Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Dell (Human Technomancer played by Shane Bradley), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

Dell and Hollywood worked hard to provide triage and first aid to members of Kaur’s Farm.  Meanwhile, Clutch rallied some of the tech-savvy of the people and began tearing into the generator with aplomb, discovering it would take several hours of work.  The group got more information from Singh and Donnie and decided to go south to investigate a squatter settlement that no one had heard from in a week.  The team drove a rust bucket pick-up truck down there and found a scene of horror.  Dead animals were everywhere, and the camp was filled with dead people. 

The group used a forensics kit provided by Donnie Hua to investigate and spent about three hours gathering information.  They learned the people died from a combination of animal and human/metahuman injuries.  Oddly, only the bodies of males and women over 50 were found among the dead.  Several bodies were obviously missing as well.  Around the camp, they discovered bait stations that would draw in predatory animals close to the settlement.  They also found mountain bike tracks all around.  Hollywood made the horrific discovery that the bodies had been partially eaten by human-like bites, but pains had been taken to cover up this fact by mutilating the bodies. 

They returned to Kaur’s Farm to report their findings.  In the meantime, Clutch had fixed the generator.  Dell was able to discover some bait stations around the farm as well, and they matched those at the settlement. 

The group went north to the microbrewery to investigate the scene where the first body that had drawn Hua out here had been found.  There they discovered several more bodies and pieced together more clues.  Several key pieces of evidence pointed to a Gabriel hound as being the culprit, but some of the facts did not add up.  Ballyhoo was able to sense that some sort of spirit had been involved, and its residual aura did not match the magic he had sensed on the corpses of the dead animals back at the farm.  The group also found that one of the sprawl gangers had unloaded a magazine into “something” that flattened the rounds.  Perplexed, the team got back into their truck to return to the farm. 

Game summary for January 14, 2020, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ballyhoo (Human Augmenter played by Andrew Renfrow), Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team landed the stolen chopper on the Ares ship and made the exchange, collecting their fee.  They then remotely called in Clutch’s boat and abandoned the helicopter, letting it crash into the sound.  Then they took a two-week vacation to the California Free State to lay low a while. 

After returning to Seattle, they received an early morning call from Fast Freddy who got them in touch with Donnie Hua, a retired Lone Star officer.  He convinced them to accept a run to the Redmond Barrens to investigate some deaths, some strange animal attacks, and to bring in needed medical and mechanical supplies.  However, they had to leave in 3 hours to get generator parts to Kaur’s Farm before nightfall. 

The group gathered their gear and traveled to the infamous Crusher 495 bar to meet up with a Crimson Crush convoy hired to take them to the farm.  They met Arona, a female troll member of Crimson Crush.  The team watched the various riffraff and desperate denizens of the Barrens negotiating passage on the convoy.  The trip was mostly uneventful; the Crush disabled one IED, but otherwise were not harassed. 

Once they arrived at the farm, they found piles of dead animals and lots of tired and wounded people.  The gear was unloaded, and Hollywood went off to help tend to the injured.  Clutch was asked to help with the generator repair.  Octane and Ballyhoo accompanied Donnie and Chaaya into the compound to meet with the patron of the farm, Bhagat Singh.  They discovered him to be a massive troll armed with a sweeping curved sword.  They exchanged some pleasantries for a few minutes while Hollywood and Clutch were doing what they could to help out. 

Game summary for January 7, 2020, Into The Shadows campaign, Shadowrun 5th Edition, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Ballyhoo (Human Augmenter played by Andrew Renfrow), Clutch (Human Transport Rigger played by Peyton Harmon), Dell (Human Technomancer played by Shane Bradley), Hollywood (Human Combat Medic played by Chris Harmon), and Octane (Elf Razor played by Casey Scruggs). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.

The team piled into the elevator as both Dell and Clutch tried desperately to hack it.  Finally, they succeeded, and it ascended to the 55th floor.  The group piled out, and Octane used his foam explosives to blow up the stairs in the two stairwells before the guards could make it to the top while the others jammed the elevator doors open with office furniture.  Octane then rigged the elevator to blow in case they needed it to.  The group then went out and hid under the helipad awaiting the chopper.

The helicopter landed, and two armed men emerged obviously having trouble with their comms with building security.  VP Muller was quickly ushered off the roof and into the stairwell.  The team emerged and hijacked the helicopter from the pilot.  They plunged off the roof right as one of the guards returned and opened fire.

The group cheered as they began to speed off into the night.  However, one of the building windows exploded outward as a western dragon burst forth and took up pursuit!  It lashed the chopper with flaming breath, badly damaging the vehicle, but Clutch was able to keep it aloft.  Octane threw open the door, and the team unleashed a barrage of bullets and spells at the dragon.  Some struck true, others bounced off its thick scales.  Ballyhoo hit it with magic as Clutch began to outpace it.  Out of range of its breath, the dragon hurled spells of its own.  It knocked Dell unconscious and rocked the chopper.  Again Clutch’s expert piloting skills kept them airborne and moving.  With some impressive maneuvering, he dodged around buildings and left the dragon far behind!  The group then headed out to sea to rendezvous with the Ares vessel to make the drop.