Demetrius "Drainpipe" Parker (Shadowrun 5th edition)

Growing up, Demetrius was always small (for an ork) and weak (for an ork), earning the weedy boy no end of teasing as he grew up.  He was young when the bomb dropped and Chicago changed, but he remembers the chaos of the day well, everyone running everywhere and his worst nightmare buzzing down from the sky to snatch people away.  The children of the neighborhood banded together as they lost their parents to these and to people taking advantage of the panic to let loose their vices, snatch up what they’d always coveted, and release repressed (or not so) bigotry upon their neighbors.  Thus was the Southside Devil’s Playground born.

Demetrius went by his initials for a long time, until the jokes started up about what exactly “DP” could mean.  Of course, the jokes started just as puberty infected everything with an awkwardness that teamed up with the teasing to silence the young Demetrius.  A fellow gangmember by the name of 4-Deer saw what was happening, and pity struck a developing heart.  The human Aztlaner quickly began to tell everyone that “DP” stood for “Drainpipe”, which had its own awkward interpretations.  Those were easier to handle, however, even if Demetrius got squirrely when asked how he got the name.

Until he was 15, however.  A rumble with a neighboring gang got interrupted as a swarm of wasp fleshforms swarmed out from the apartment building at whose feet the gangs killed each other.  Everyone scattered like, well, like humans in Chicago.  Demetrius stumbled just a wee bit too fast into an alley, slick with what he hoped was rainwater, and bumped into an unexpected overturned dumpster.  Spinning on the vertical axis, he fell to the ground with a grunt that left him breathless.  As his eyes focused and the disorientation cleared, he saw something gleaming in, well, in a drainpipe across the way from him.  It was, amazingly, a pair of high-end cybereyes cupped in the bowl of equally fancy cyberears.  Even without expertise in the buying and selling of such things, Demetrius could tell that the obviously used and strangely clean cyberware was worth more than he’d dreamed of seeing in one place.

The loud buzzing of wings echoed down the alley from the street, prompting Demetrius to scramble up, grab the conveniently hand-sized treasure, and run.  Agreeing to work off the cost of the surgery, Drainpipe managed to find a body ripper willing to install his find.  In the years since, he has served his fellows primarily as a lookout and a gatherer of information.  A year or two back, he took up in the bunraku trap house operated by the Playground.  An easy division of labor developed, with Raul negotiating the sale with the johns and Neal keeping the product (the sex workers) in good condition while Drainpipe haunts the hallway.  If he hears a scene gone wrong, a john trying to break one of the bunraku, he raises the alarm and bursts in.  If any of the girls get hired for a job outside of the house, Drainpipe is usually the one to follow and watch and make sure the bunraku returns to the house.

The fallen popera star Pera Veneziano washed ashore at the trap house a while back, abandoned by the current of her BTL addiction.  At first, Drainpipe struggled to keep his cool, faced with a (minor) celebrity in his life, and moreover, one in his (well, the Playground’s) control.  The starstruck feeling quickly faded.  It took Drainpipe some time to realize what the residue left in its wake was, but figure it out he did.  It was love.  He’d somehow begun to fall in love with the zaftig elf, without ever having realized.

Pera, of course, sees through the boy’s facade, but she hasn’t said anything yet.  Demetrius, at least, understands the dangers his heart presents, the lines he would be crossing if he did anything it wants him to do.

Appearance:  As always, I have few to no visual arts skills >.< So here's three pictures that, if combined, can give you an idea of what he looks like:

Priorities (street-level rules): 
A ~ Resources (75,000 nuyen)
B ~ Attributes (20)
C ~ Metatype (Ork/0)
D ~ Skills (22/0)
E ~ Magic (--)

BOD  5  AGI  3  REA  5  STR  5
CHA  3  INT  6  LOG  3  WIL  3
ESS  4.75  MAG  0  EDG  1  INIT  11+1D6
Mental Limit  5  Physical Limit  7  Social Limit  5
Physical Boxes  10  Stun Boxes  9  Overflow Boxes 5

Active Skills: Blades 2, Con 1, Cybertechnology 1, Etiquette (Street) 1 (+2), Intimidation 2, Perception 4, Pistols 2, Palming 2, Running 2, Sneaking 2, Unarmed Combat 3
Knowledge Skills: Business 2, Seattle Street Gangs (Southside Devil’s Playground) 5 (+2), Sprawl Life 4, Street BTLs 3
Languages: English (City Speak) N, Or’zet 3 

Qualities:  Asthma (8 pt., negative), Distinctive Style (gang tattoos, 5 pt., negative), Quick Healer (3 pt., positive), Restricted Gear (10 pt. positive)

Cyberware:  Used cybereyes 4 with flare compensation, low-light vision, microscopic lenses, smartlink, thermographic vision, vision enhancement 3, vision magnification; used cyberears 4 with audio analyzer, audio enhancement 3, increased spectrum, select sound filter 3, spatial recognizer, translate-ear 3
Weapons:  Colt America L36 with concealed holster, 2 spare clips, 110 rounds of regular ammo; knife; Ruger Super Warhawk with 2 speed loaders, 60 rounds regular ammo; Streetline Special with concealed holster, 30 rounds regular ammo
Personal Protective Equipment:  Armored jacket with nonconductivity 6; respirator 1 (50 nY=83,510)
Electronics:  Renraku Sensei commlink; medkit 3
Contracts and Such:  2 months Low Lifestyle
Other Gear:  10 plastic restraints; cybertechnology kit

Contacts:  Diatomaceous, a fixer (Connection 3/Loyalty 1); 4-Deer, a fellow member of the Southside Devil's Playground (Connection 2/Loyalty 3)

Neurally Ambiguous: Geppetto Must Die returns THIS Thursday!!!

 Yes, that's right!  Show Us Your Crits's adult stream returns this Thursday at 5pm PDT / 8pm EDT with "The Dangers of Influence Here in the Quiet Limit of the World, part 2", the second episode of our Shadowrun 5e campaign Neurally Ambiguous: Geppetto Must Die.

Continue following the lives, adventures, and dreams of a house of bunraku sexworkers, addicted to a digital drug that replaces their personality with whoever their client wants them to be!  Last episode, Matrix journalist Marko Lee became quite enamored of the bunraku La Diablita among the intimate battery-operated lamplight of Pog Ma Thoin in Chicago's Southside.  Unfortunately, a member of the Southside Devil's Playground gang by the name of Drainpipe was watching and relaying what they were saying.  Particularly the bit about Marko wanting to write an article about the bunraku and the Playground's house chock-full of them.  Pera Veneziano, the fallen popera star, was "convinced" tp "recruit" Marko to the house ~ after all, their only male bunraku is a ghoul, and the Krieger Strain of the Human-Metahuman Vampiric Virus is not a particularly sexy disease.

La Diablita seems to have argued herself into going along with Pera's plan, but will it work?  What will they do to neutralize the threat of publicity Marko presents?  Find out more this Thursday at https://plexstorm.com/stream/showusyourcrits# !!!  See you there!

Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/showusyourcritsmedia/ on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9OSkuS0p1KitB9P4gzjftg (8 more followers, and JayCee will be giving away a piece of RPG memorabilia to a random follower!) and Twitter at https://twitter.com/UsCrits !

If you'd like to support the stream, you can do so by becoming a patron of Grindhaus Media (producers of our show, Show Us Your Crits's other two shows ~ a Stargate SG:1 game and a Curse of Strahd campaign, both PG-rated ~ and the Alternative Play Podcast about the intersection of geek and kink culture) at https://www.patreon.com/grindhaus_media .  If you'd ALSO like to support my RPG streaming and writing efforts, including not only Neurally Ambiguous, but an upcoming adventure for Steve Jackson Games' angels-and-demons game In Nomine called Game of Stones: Everything is Peachy and my ongoing RPG blog Lucifer's Sub-Creations with content for any number of games, you can become my patron at https://patreon.com/queermythopoeia .

Thank you so much for your generosity!  See you on Thursday!

The premiere of Neurally Ambiguous: Geppetto Must Die is THIS Thursday!

Last night, the Show Us Your Crits adult stream team had the pre-show consent conversation for the Shadowrun game **I'm** running on the stream!  The first episode of a Neurally Ambiguous: Geppetto Must Die will stream live this Thursday at 5pm PDT / 8 pm EDT at https://plexstorm.com/stream/showusyourcrits#.  

The game follows the sex workers Marko Lee (human music journalist), Pera Veneziano (the elf former pop-opera singer), and the ork known as La Diablita, a Catholic magician who ran away from home as a teenager!   These three are bunraku, hooked on a digital drug called BTL chips (Better Than Life) that replaces their personalities with whoever their client wants them to be.  It's a heady mix of my mind control fetish with my social conscience set in a world blending cyberpunk and fantasy.  Specifically, in a version of Chicago just recovering from the nuclear bomb blast that mostly failed to contain the invasion of bug spirits from beyond reality.

Episodes will be archived for on-demand viewing at https://www.youtube.com/c/ShowusyourCrits/ (please subscribe, if you'd be willing. We'll be giving away a piece of memorabilia every 100 subscribers until we hit 1000.  We're quite close to 200!!)

If you'd like to help support me in producing more and more RPG content, both written and streamed, please consider becoming my patron at https://www.patreon.com/queermythopoeia .  You can donate as little as $1 a month, and everything helps. I'm currently on food stamps and welfare, so there is no bucket for a drop to disappear among.  I am deeply grateful and profoundly helped by every donation.  Of course, if you'd like to give more, I have many tiers of patrons, all the way up to $500 a month!  You can support Grindhaus Media, the producers of Show Us Your Crits, similarly at https://www.patreon.com/Grindhaus_Media .

Thank you very much!

Neurally Ambiguous: Gepetto Must Die

 

Quarantine has been a weirdly powerful time for me, allowing me to get my license back and a car to use it with, and to start what I hope to be something of a career writing RPG material and streaming on an RPG show called Show Us Your Crits (specifically its adult stream).

Next Thursday, the first episode of a Shadowrun camapign I'm running will stream live at https://plexstorm.com/stream/showusyourcrits#.  Neurally Ambiguous: Gepetto Must Die follows the prostitutes Marko Lee (human music journalist), Pera Veneziano (the elf former pop-opera singer), and the ork known as La Diablita, everyone's fantasy of a runaway Catholic schoolgirl . . . who happens to be able to cast spells!   These three are bunraku, hooked on a digital drug called BTL chips (Better Than Life) that replaces their personalities.  It's a heady mix of my mind control fetish with my social conscience set in a world blending cyberpunk and fantasy.  Specifically, in a version of Chicago just recovering from the nuclear bomb blast that mostly failed to contain the invasion of bug spirits from beyond reality.

Episodes will be archived for on-demand viewing at https://www.youtube.com/c/ShowusyourCrits/ (please subscribe, if you'd be willing. We'll be giving away a piece of memorabilia every 100 subscribers until we hit 1000.  We're quite close to 200!!)

If you want to even further subsidize a gamer trying to build up the finances to meet bos needs and hopefully help others, I started a Patreon to support my RPG writing and streaming.  You can donate as little as $1 a month, and it all helps, quite a bit.  Just a couple weeks ago, I gained enough donors to essentially have an extra month of GA+foodstamps every year!  You can become a patron at https://patreon.com/queermythopoeia

Thank you very much!

Poison Oak mentor spirit (Shadowrun 5th edition)

The Show Us Your Crits adult stream is building up to Neurally Ambiguous: Gepetto Must Die, the Shadowrun 5e campaign I'll be running in which we follow the lives, dreams, and struggles of a house full of bunraku prostitutes.  And engage in some mind control fetish fun, as well!  In the flow of my excitement, I have reached back into my pile of half-completed ideas, found this, and polished it off to present to y'all.  I hope you enjoy it!

As always, thank you to my patrons Jaina Bee, Ferny, Casey, Dave, Todd, and Darius.  They and my other patrons saw this post a week early ~ if you would like to support my writing and my streaming (and join them in seeing all of my blog posts before anyone else), you can do so on my Patreon ~ even $1/month helps a tremendous amount! 

Poison Oak

The original namesake of what is now called Los Angeles, Yaang lives on the edge of the forest, crouching and invisible.  Most famous for the oil on her leaves to which metahumans are uniquely allergic, she nonetheless holds many powers.  Upon annexing LA in 2061, the Pueblo Corporate Council experienced a fad for the old techniques of using her juice or soot to color baskets and tattoos; a close relative of hers is used for lacquer in Japan.  Poison Oak feeds deer with her leaves and squirrels with her berries, and has always helped the Chumash cure many ills.

Advantages
All:  +1 for Artisan and First Aid tests.  A magical lodge counts as +1 Force for the purpose of crafting qi foci in the form of tattoos.
Magician:  +1 die for Counterspelling Tests and anchored rituals, +1 die for summoning plant spirits.
Adept:  3 free levels of Stillness.

Disadvantages
Poison Oak guards, but she does so without violence, preferring instead to make things so unpleasant for intruders that they leave of their own volition.  Accordingly, her followers must succeed at a Charisma + Intuition (3) test in order to take any directly violent action, each time.  They have no problem using non-violent means like many health or manipulation spells to soften up targets for their more . . . direct teammates to then be violent at, however.

Similar Archetypes:  Forest, Guardian Angel, Fence, Smudge. 

Notes on Character Synergies and Use
The Nahua ("Aztec"), druid, Hindu, Muslim, Romani, Shinto, Wiccan, and Wuxing traditions all summon plant spirits to help with health spells, while the Oceti Sakowin ("Sioux") ask them to help with detection spells and Zoroastrians with manipulation spells.  With their predilection for not being seen and for stunning, rather than killing, their enemies, druids might be especially drawn to following Poison Oak.  Nahua and Shinto use Charisma to resist Drain, which is a less than optimal combination with Poison Oak's skill bonuses (though it does help them with the mentor spirit's disadvantage).  That hardly seems to be severe enough to outweigh the fact that, culturally, they are the most appropriate traditions in which to approach Poison Oak.  (OK, so Nahua isn't really, but there's no Chumash tradition or anything of the sort >.< )  An Oceti Sakowin follower of Poison Oak is likely to focus on espionage work, while a Zoroastrian might find bodyguard work most comfortable; Poison Oak followers of other traditions likely gravitate towards being healers.

The green magic tradition recently discovered by the Tzuri Group under the waves off of India's coast has, quite expectedly, proven to be very fertile ground for Poison Oak mages, summoning plant spirits for help with every kind of spell except manipulation.  They do use Charisma to resist Drain, though.  The Tzuri group also recently revealed that they had knowledge of a tradition they call necro magic, which summons the plant-like rot spirits for help with health spells.  Perhaps ironically, since it uses Logic to resist Drain, Poison Oak necro mages truly excel as healers.  DocWagon has made it known that . . . convincing . . . such a mage to accept employment from them would be worth a grip of nuyen.

Though most of the Ways could easily be appropriate for an adept following Poison Oak, the Artisan's and Invisible Ways are probably the most common among such adepts, though there are a perhaps shocking number of Poison Oak adepts on the Speaker's Way.

Crowdsourced campaign idea (Shadowrun, or rather: Shadowridiculous)

While trying to read up on Los Angeles to prepare for the upcoming Poison Oak Mentoring Month I'm writing up, I found this little bit:

{In Shadowrun, Los Angeles has been beaten by repeated major earthquakes, leaving a good chunk of its megaplex as underwater ruins and most Angelenos homeless refugees}

"Several charity clinics in West Covina serve the refugee camps and are known for being less than picky about IDs, especially if you can actually pay.
. . . .
Pomona and the Covina Floodwall
The gateway to the Inland Empire, the city of Covina became a sort of breakwater for all of the debris carried along by the flood.  As a result, the city of West Covina is now a sort of monstrous floodwall keeping the toxic stew of the floodwaters here out of the rest of the IE. On the east side of the floodwall lies Pomona, now populated mostly by the down and out, those too poor to move to higher ground and out of the shadow of the floodwall.  Massive refugee camps sprawl out, temporary pre-fab structures rise shakily towards the sky, and bright graffiti stands out against the predominately gray buildings and residents. It is a bitter and hopeless sort of place, as the shadow of the floodwall serves as a constant reminder of LA’s most recent calamity.
The Covina floodwall, practically the size of a small city itself, is a massive construction designed to filter and purify the toxic waters on the other side and pipe them to the Inland Empire. A small army of engineers and drones maintain the equipment and constantly monitor the status of the waters on the other side. The floodwall is a joint PCC and Maersk project, with Maersk providing much of the aquatech needed to run the operation. PCC forces have a strong presence in the area, and security has increased significantly after the recent bomb scare.  Despite the increased security, there have been numerous raids on the floodwall in the past months. Mostly small sabotage, although a few key structural points have been targeted.
Pomona and Covina are really hopping with independent assets right now. Pomona has a lot of places to hide, despite the increased security, and enough people who are too busy trying to make it through another miserable day to care about a stranger’s business.
> If you’re looking for work in the area, try Mitzie’s Bar. The crowd is pretty hardcore, and you won’t find any fancy LA drinks, just piss-poor soy-beer. The bartender, Macy, has some good Azzie contacts and will hook you up, for a price.
> Alex Machine"

And I thought: what would Crazy Ex-Girlfriend be like if it was set in the Sixth World?  What do y'all think?  Any ideas for musically ridiculous nuanced-feminist adventures in the post-Awakening world?  What would it be like if Rebecca Bunch hired your shadowrun team for one of her schemes?  How does the story change if West Covina is a bunch of buildings sticking out of irradiated salt water like broken teeth and everyone is wearing rags they plucked from underneath the waves?  What if Darryl Whitefeather wasn't just a lawyer, but actually working for the beleaguered Pueblo Corporate Council government?  Which character is the secret Aztechnology agent (are Greg Serrano or Valencia Maria Perez disaffected Aztechnology employees?)

Aztec/Nahua Representation in RPGs (a request followed by a rant)

What I wouldn't give for just one single RPG that portrayed the Nahua (a.k.a., Aztecs) without resorting to "human sacrifice is bad, mmkay?  So EVIL!"  Does anyone know of an RPG that depicts the Nahua or a Nahua expy that doesn't invoke that tired old racist trope?  Preferably one that displays Nahua religion, with nextlaoaliztli present, without moralizing about it?

<rant>

Seriously, every major RPG of my day that has featured any Mesoamerican content whatsoever (which is, itself, a distressingly small number ~ I can think of Deadlands, Shadowrun, D&D2e/Maztica, and D&D3.x third-party products, and I feel like I'm forgetting an obvious one or two) has at least included elements of that.  Deadlands at least had the "Oh, but these few teteo are good!" inclusion so that qweens could play "acceptable" Nahua characters, but their storyline in-setting was almost inevitably all about fighting the evil Aztecs who wanted, like, their land back or whatever.  And whatever else might be true about Precious/Feathered Serpent, I can never see him portrayed as the sole good teotl/one of the only good teteo without thinking about effing Fray Diego Duran and his theory that Precious/Feathered Serpent was actually Saint Thomas!  It might be reaching, but the colonialist BS gets baked in pretty deep.

Shadowrun had the ovaries to face up to their racist depiction of Aztechnology/Aztlan ("Blood magic is bringing back the Horrors and that's what those brown people south of the border are all trying to do!"  Fuck you, Mr. Darke) but 5th edition feels the need to go on and on about how blood magic is inherently evil and addictive unless you do it out of total, all-consuming, purest-of-the-pure love and nobility.  Nextlaoaliztli is neither the godsdamned Force nor is it effing Sunday School!

</rant>

This is a frustration that strikes me every 18 months or so, when I touch on my favorite RPGs, like Deadlands and Shadowrun, that do this bullshit.  Thanks for reading my venting.