[Murrdox]

Hey folks,

Our game group is getting back into Shadowrun, and I see that Catalyst has finally gotten some official forums up, so I figured I'd get my feet wet by asking some of the other GMs for some assistance in designing a campaign dealing with Insect Spirits.

I'm looking at designing a medium-sized campaign that consists of 2 "major" runs and perhaps an opportunity for 1 or 2 minor runs. I want to have an overarching plot connecting the two runs.

My players consist of:

Human Face: His Charisma is so fucking high he can talk himself into anything. He has an EDGE of 8, so whenever he gets into combat he burns Edge to make up for his lack of combat skills (and this usually works out really well)

Human Gun Expert: He'd be a Street Sam... if his character wasn't totally against the idea of cyberware. So, he's a totally unaugmented Street Sam, which honestly makes him rather mediocre at what he does.

Human Rigger: Only member of the group with even rudimentary hacking skills. He's got a couple of drones, but doesn't yet have the finances for the really big, powerful stuff. He's still pretty good in a fight though.

Mage: Player is re-making his mage, so I'm not sure what it'll be yet. He's hinted that he's going to specialize in Summoning and Manipulation spells (this player loves mind control, stealth and summoning, and STRONGLY avoids direct confrontation like Astral Combat)

The players take care of Hacking by means of an Agent, and occasionally contracting it out to NPCs.

* * * * *

So now that you know what I'm dealing with, here's what I've been thinking regarding a campaign.

Some players are very new to Shadowrun, and they haven't dealt with Insect Spirits yet, and neither have I. I think Insect Spirits sound downright terrifying and would be a great plothook to get them into. I think what would be fantastic is putting them into a Shadowrun where they are dealing with an Insect Spirt cult before they realize what the hell they've gotten themselves into. Cue frightening music.

I'm thinking of framing this mission as a rescue mission. Here's a brief outline.

Local Suit has a young rebellious daughter who has gone missing. She's a bit of a troublemaker, and her father wants her found without alerting authorities.

Daughter has an ex-boyfriend who is secretly an Insect Shaman (Haven't decided what kind yet. Wasp?). The Ex-Boyfriend is obsessed with her, and wants to make her his Queen.

Ex-Boyfriend kidnaps the girl, and is holding her captive. His Ex-Girlfriend is obviously terrified to discover the true nature of her Ex-Boyfriend. The Insect Shaman is so obsessed with her though, that he wants her to become his WILLING Queen and is trying to slowly bring her into the fold.

Runners try tracking down the Ex-Boyfriend, and run into a small nest of Wasp insect spirits before they realize what they're dealing with.

Runners track down the Shaman himself where he is holding the suit's daughter captive.

* * *

I think this sounds like a decent run, and there's ways to flesh it out. I have some additional things to worry about though.

a) The team likes Search and Destroy missions with big payouts. Need to figure out a way to get some good paydata into this mission for them.

b) Need to figure out how to work this into a real plotline that I can use for a second mission.... hopefully more complex than "Oh no it was just a small part of a LARGER insect hive. Go kill those guys too".

c) Only one Mage in the group. I don't want to have SO much magical stuff that the Mage steals the show and the others don't have anything to do. Worried that when it comes to fighting the nest, they won't have enough magical firepower with just one Mage.

I'm also having a difficult time understanding how Insect Hives work.

The rules for Insect Spirits don't include a Manifestation power, but yet in Street Magic, it talks about their Manifested forms crawling up walls and flying around like giant bugs. Can Insect Spirits manifest or can't they?

I sort of imagine an Insect Hive (lets take Wasp as an example) of having Drone Insect Spirits bound to actual Wasps, creating big flying Wasps, as well as Humanoids who have been bound to them, and have taken on Wasp-like appearances. Then you might have a few Insect Spirits that have NOT been bound to a host yet, who are simply Astral... but they can't Manifest?

If a GM could give me some insight on the rules for Insect Spirits and how I should lay out a couple small nests of them that'd be really helpful.

If you read this, I thank you. Thanks for your assistance! I appreciate any ideas anyone has.

[Black]

Read up on Evanescene (p148 Street Magic).  I don't think, imho, that an insect spirit can even stay in the local astral very long, what with losing 1 force every sunrise/sunset.

So your insect spirits need host bodies.  Most your insect spirits will most likely by hybrid forms (see p100 street magic), with anything from some minor physcial insect features to being complete freaks.  Flesh Form are good too, because they tend to have masking and look all normal.

Insect Spirits have shown themselves them be pretty good at concealling their hives and forms.  They may be alien, but they ain't stupid/animlistic (though Wasp spirits are not know for being very bright).  Your hive will look fairly normal on the outside, perhaps an abandonend construction site,or  empty building.  Being Wasps, maybe something tall.  The hive itself may look like something out of Aliens.  Insect spirits tend to transform their hive with organisc gunk etc.  They also cacoon their victims as part of the transformation.  With Wasps, think hives, gooey sticking tunnels which then open out to 30 story falls.  (Wasp spirits can generally fly).

Now, balance.  The flesh forms/hybrids, I think, will have immunity to normal weapons, which is forcex2 armour, ignoring anything with power below this figure.  But, some full auto long bursts should still rip them apart.  Explosives are good too, if a little risky in close quarters.  Maybe fire.  The other issue is that Spirits are fast, very fast and it sounds like your crew... isn't.  I suggest you keep the number of spirits low, because they are pretty tough.  Given that they can fly, they Shaman might beat a hasty retreat, setting up a round two for later.

Have fun.

[Walks Through Walls]

With the lack of magical power in your group insect spirits will be tough, but not impossible. One high force spirit will really wreck havoc on your group unless the mage gets the drop on it. Also the insect shaman will make this more pronounced depending on the spells he has.
I would start them out against a fairly new hive, and if they take it out then move on. If not then it is an instant hook for a followup adventure either immediately or down the road when they and it have become more powerful.

I have a fairly low magic group that I am running right now and I used several low force spirits (force 1-3 for the majority) so they still got the hive overrunning feel without it being overpowering to the team. With a mix of flesh, hybrid and true form spirits it can keep the group guessing.
I have an idea for an additional adventure which is similar to one I'm running so if your interested look under the spoiler

In addition to the ex-girlfriend have the insect shaman abduct another friend or sister to the heroine. Have a high force (5or 6) scout spirit inhabit the friend/sister while the insect shaman is trying to convince the heroine to willingly become his queen. Have this happen without the girl's knowledge so she will want the characters to save her also. This works especially well if all the other spirits the characters have run into are either true or hybrid forms. Then a followup can be when the scout finds a new shaman if the characters kill the original or meets back up with him to form a hive again in a more subtle fashion this time, and maybe even trying to lure in the original girl again.

For your question about the spirits inhabiting wasps or some other insect I don't believe this is possible from what I have read on insect spirits.
Insect spirits cannot just manifest as MrBlack said read up on Evanescene it is explained pretty well and in detail there.

As far as the layout of the nest make it an underground labyrinth with places that the spirits can ambush from or if you are going with the wasps make it in an abandoned high rise with some of the stairs gone so the players have to climb to the top where the larvae are at.

Hope all this helps let me know if you have more questions 

[Fizzygoo]

Daughter has an ex-boyfriend who is secretly an Insect Shaman (Haven't decided what kind yet. Wasp?). The Ex-Boyfriend is obsessed with her, and wants to make her his Queen.

I would take a slower road for this (but the below is all just a suggestion). I would make the ex-boyfriend a "good merge" and the daughter is his first "recruitment" attempt which failed resulting in a kidnapping rather than recruiting. The whole reason he's an "ex" is because he joined a gang a few months back and the gang is a funnel for recruits for the actual hive. So the gang is a mix of mostly normals with a few good merges.

So when the players have to fight to get the girl back they fight a few members that are...odd. Odd both in capabilities and behavior. But mostly they're just fighting better-than-average geared gangers.

Unfortunately for the girl, the Insect Shaman for the hive had a chance (before the PCs ever get there) to look her over and thinks she's just perfect for the Queen's host so he's off at the main hive preparing things.

Next, throw a loop into everything by having the daughter not want to go back to daddy. She definitely doesn't want to go back to the gang, but she doesn't want daddy as well; either because he beats her, won't give her her inheritance from mommy's death, is too over protective, or something else (probably the reason why he doesn't want the authorities involved in the first place). So when the daughter offers to pay the runners to take her somewhere else...they have to decide to screw over their Johnson or help out the girl.

Their choice in how to help the girl will either lead to the Insect Shaman and her father trying to hunt them down (three-way combats can be quite fun) or the girl gets kidnapped from home again when the Shaman sends more "skilled" elements to get her back from her father (which would lead to the father hiring the runners again, seeing as how they did a good job the first time and didn't screw him over by helping the daughter). But in either case the insects work really really hard to make sure they re-kidnap the girl again.

Then once the girl is rescued a second time, some other Johnson has learned of the hive and wants the runners to destroy it (not to mention any other complications dealing with the daughter like "not you fraggers again, you're just going to take me back to daddy!").

This way you have levels in which to introduce the bugs. Level one, the gang, something is strange. Level two, the second kidnapping, it's dangerous at the hive. Then the third, destroying the hive, is deadly and scary. Once the players start to catch on that bugs may be involved you can have them notice the cockroaches in their kitchens, the wasps on their SuperJoySoda cans, etc.

As for your additional worry points:

a) The gang is well equipped, apparently by some corp, and once their contacts learn about the runners involvement with the gang, they'd be willing to pay big for information on who is supplying the gang.

b) Doing the first mission: assault the gang, get the girl leads to the next mission: get the girl from the insect shaman...which can lead to a third: great you got the girl but this other Johnson wants that hive destroyed.

c) Again, tiered missions...first one only one, maybe two, merged insect spirits (low to average force) and the mage isn't the star. Second mission, mage is needed for help against the shaman and his minions. Third mission the PCs may want to hire additional magical support if they decide to take the run to destroy the hive.

Again, just suggestions but something along these lines would help to address most of your worries. May you scare your players well

[Walks Through Walls]

Fizzygoo I like the way you put together tiers of the campaign with each one becoming a bit harder and more scary to the characters. I also like the blurring of the lines with the girl not wanting to go back to the father.

I agree with you that three way firefights can be a lot of fun, and as a GM they have the added bonus of being able to adjust the difficulty level on the fly rather easily. If the characters are breezing through the adventure more of the NPCs target them, but if the characters struggle or have a couple go down then the two groups start picking off each other instead of the characters.

[Murrdox]

Thank you for the ideas!  I've been working on fleshing out the campaign more and studying Street Magic some more.

I had my "Eureka!" moment last night when I finally found the sidebar in Street Magic which explains the True Form, Hybrid, and Flesh Form in more accurate terms.  I can't say I'm a huge fan of how Street Magic is laid out, the information I need for Insect Spirits and Insect Shamans seems to be all over the place.

ANYWAYS...

Now I understand that when the spirit tries to Inhabitate a host, it may result in True Form, a Hybrid, or a Flesh Form, depending on how successful the merger is.  So a nest will likely consist of several of each of these types of hosts.  The True Forms gain the Materialization power and an Astral Form and no longer suffer from Evanescence.  So a nest will probably have a few True Forms, some Hybrids, and some Flesh Forms around.

Before I was totally confused, because the Insect Spirit descriptions seemed to indicate that they had Astral Forms, but I didn't understand why any Insect Spirit would run around Manifesting itself and suffering from Evanescence at the same time.

SO anyways on to my campaign ideas.  Still looking to flesh this out some more, so please continue to chime in.

Fizzy, I like your gang idea.  I was sort of beginning to write something like that.  I'd come up with the idea of an abandoned house that the Insect Hive was inhabiting, and the people who lived there were paying protection money to one of the local gangs.  I think I like your idea of actually USING the gang to recruit members into the hive though.  I'm going to expand on that a bit.

I've added in the idea that "Daddy" is being blackmailed by an executive from a rival corp.  I'm tentatively saying that Daddy works for Horizon, while his rival (let's call him Bob) is at Ares, but I may choose something besides AAA players for this one.

Anyways, when Daddy's daughter goes missing, he's afraid Bob will find out about it before he does, and use this to continue blackmailing him.  His daughter got mixed up in the Tempo trade, and Bob found out about it.  Daddy tightened the leash on his daughter, but he's afraid that she'll go back to her old habits.  When she suddenly goes missing, he's anxious to make sure Bob never finds out about it.

(I'm not sure I'm quite happy about this plotline yet.  Daughter is a drug dealer?  Looking for better ideas.  Bob really has to have a good reason to be interested in her, and Daughter needs to have something that's really damaging if Daddy's corp knew about it.  Ya know... something... blackmailable.  I thought about maybe making the Daughter a Technomancer, and Daddy is trying to keep that a secret, but Bob knows about it... something like that?)

Meanwhile, Bob absolutely has found out that she is missing.  He has contacts keeping a close eye on her.  When he finds out Daddy is hiring Shadowrunners to track her down, he has one of his contacts approach them to offer them an alternative.  Find out where she is, inform him, and tell Daddy that she's nowhere to be found.  (Maybe something more nefarious?  If she's really a Technomancer, maybe Bob wants to bring her over to his company?  Shadowrunners bring her, willing or not, to him?)  Obviously I'd have to dangle a fat payoff to the Shadowrunners.  A big Nuyen payment in addition to some juicy information about Daddy's company might work.

Legwork leads to a performer that Daughter is close friends with.  She's pretty famous though and isn't going to talk to just anyone who sends her an email.  Shadowrunners are going to have to show up at her concert, and find out some way of getting close to her so they can get some information.  Shadowrunners are also supposed to keep Daughter's disappearance "quiet" so they can't just blab to her friend "Oh your friend is missing do you have any good leads?".  Good social encounter for the team and an opportunity for the Face to do his job.

The Performer friend should be able to tell the Shadowrunners about Daughter's ex-boyfriend, and that the Daughter was getting nervous about being stalked.

Once they ID the boyfriend it shouldn't be too hard to look up his gang affiliation and track him down to his turf.

At that point the runners can try and infiltrate or fight their way into one of the gang's houses.  It'll be watched outside by a Flesh Form.  There's a True Form spirit in the basement with a couple of hosts, and some Hybrids, making the beginning of a rudimentary nest.  A gang fight will quickly turn bizarre as they fight off the Insect Spirit and the Hybrids.  Some clues down in the hive will clue the Runners to the location of the Insect Shaman himself, and where he's taken the daughter.

Here's an interesting twist I could throw in...

If I make the Ex-Boyfriend a Flesh Form instead of the Insect Shaman himself... after the Runners break up the first hive, and track the Ex-Boyfriend down, what if I make it such that the Ex-Boyfriend can be persuaded to betray the Insect Shaman, and save the daughter?  The Flesh Form is so in love with the girl that he wants her all for himself - he doesn't want the Insect Shaman to have her.

That might give the Runners a chance to penetrate the hive with some assistance.  Of course they could also just choose to kill the Insect-Infested bastard.

Once the Insect Shaman is rescued I'm thinking that "Part 2" of this campaign may consist of Daddy getting revenge on Bob, and sending the Shadowrunners after him to make sure he never has to worry about this asshole blackmailing him ever again.

[Mirikon]

Insect spirits who have a host (whether they are True, Hybrid, or Flesh) do not suffer Evanescence. However, as dual-natured creatures (as any possessed/inhabited creature is) they do have a form on the astral, and that form may look different from how they appear in the physical.

[Walks Through Walls]

They do have a different astral form, but flesh forms have masking which allows them to appear normal and can easily throw off suspicion if the mage doesn't roll well enough.

[Black]

Insect Spirits and Shamans can be a lot of fun.
In my current campaign, the team is trying to track down a Fixer.  She appears as wise cracking dwarf fixer, completely mundane.  She keeps a team of body guards with her at all times, the 'Sisters'.  the Sisters come from all backgrounds, but the are universally fit, wear their hair in dreads tied back, always were dark mirror shades, dress in tight leather and long leather cloaks.  They never appear to carry any weapons and also appear mundane.

What they don't know is
 the 'Sappho' (from the old Denver box set) is an initiate 2 Mantis Shaman and the Sisters are all force six hybrids.  The shades hide their bug eyes, the hair aint hair, the leather cloak conceals deformed wings and the reason they don't wear armor is of course they are invulnerable to normal weapons.  They are also able to draw two long blades which are designed to look like the mantis pinchers.  They specialise in removing heads. They use wall crawling, and concealment to great effect to silently fall behind their target and *snik*   The Mantis Shaman's spells are almost all physical feets, like leaping, gecko grip, mask, death touch, etc:)

Should be a nice surprise.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

Insect spirits who have a host (whether they are True, Hybrid, or Flesh) do not suffer Evanescence...

Just as a point (and I presume this hasn't changed in 4th edition -- I certainly hope it hasn't, else the creepy must-squish factor goes way down) insect spirits can only be summoned via a host.  This is why 'disappearances have gone up in the Barrrens' becomes a twitch point for anyone who's fought the bugs for a while...

[Mirikon]

I do believe they can only be summoned with a host, yes, but if the host is destroyed, they suffer Evanescence until they get a new one. At least, that's the way I read it.

[FastJack]

As Mirikon states, Insect Spirits suffer from Evanescence when summoned. Meaning for each sunrise or sunset they are still on the astral and without a host, their Force is permanently reduced by 1. So, an insect shaman can conjure a Force 6 Insect Spirit, but it will only be around for 6 days before it dissipates without a host. And it gets progressively weaker. Hence, why it's better to get the host before you summon the spirit.

[Xzylvador]

Someone posted earlier:

But, some full auto long bursts should still rip them apart. 

Would just like to point out to the OP that this isn't in fact true. Bursts DV increase doesn't count towards (Hardened) Armor Piercing.
Keep this in mind when you decide how powerful you want the spirits to be.
The Face, Rigger and Gun Expert might have quite a lot of trouble even scratching a bug spirit's Hardened Armor, especially if they don't know much about fighting spirits and aren't prepared for it.
It might be wise having them find out the true nature of their enemy before they're thrown in combat so they can learn a bit about how to fight them more effectively (eg. use Aimed Shots to increase damage and pierce armor, use elemental attacks like Stick 'n Shock to halve the spirits armor).