[Aryeonos]

Okay, so I'm putting together my rescues for an up and coming military level campaign. It'll be set around Russia, the runner's will be part of a mercenary unit, doing "Simple" jobs.

I don't have any plans for long running intrigue, yet, the runner's will mostly be doing structure hits, extractions, and data runs.

So my issue is thinking where, geographically in and around russia are going to be plausible targets for the runners to hit? I don't know if it'll be reasonable for them to go into Yakut or just hit research stations around the north pole. I want to have some variance from mission to mission, looking for ice plains, tundra, taiga, and other polar region biomes.

Another thing is vehicles, I've been looking for arctic capable platforms that'll be cheap for the runner's to start out with before the PMC begins investing too much money on them. I've been thinking of long range modified hovercraft, so they won't have to worry about sinking in the snow so much, and drones of similar build and capability. Another thought I've had are on using some ariel drones in conjunction, like the Nimrod, but they'll need a carrier to park on in case of massive blizzards and snowstorms.

What are your guys thoughts on this?

[Mirikon]

For the weapons and vehicles, you want the Extreme Environment mod in Arsenal. Also, check Hazard Pay for all kinds of goodness on the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as surviving in frozen hellholes in general. Sixth World Almanac will have some good general info as well.

As for targets in Russia, you're forgetting that Evo has its headquarters in Vladivostok, and there's an awakened nation run by spirits with a lot of metahumans that aren't too fond of the regime change, and the Vory, and the wonderful cesspool that has always been Russian politics. Combine with the arctic info in Hazard Pay, and you should have no shortage of possibilities.

[Aryeonos]

Mh, I read through the arctic section in Hazard pay, picked up Shadows of Asia, and made sure all my vehicles had good operations range and extreme environment add ons, and electronic firing for most the guns, as well as a lot of dry lubricant supplies.

I'm just wondering what would bring a run into Yakut, if that would risk sparking wars. Allot of research stations and excavation sites are the impression I get for the high north.

 My normal campaigns run in a city of my own creation right near vladivostok so I'm familiar with Evo's involvement in russia and asia in general. MCT seems to have magic related research stations in all the far corners of the globe, and SK seem like a bad idea to hit. Who else is up there, and what would they be doing?

[GiraffeShaman]

There's a ton of virgin magical telesma that gets brought out of the Siberian wilderness by smugglers. Some of these same smugglers bring it back over the Bering straight to Vancouver and Seattle. I wouldn't be surprised if there are some extremely skilled talisman makers out there, similar to central Africa.

[Aryeonos]

Is that something only a mage would know about? In all my GMing magic has very rarely come up...I should really read any of street magic.

[GiraffeShaman]

 

Is that something only a mage would know about? In all my GMing magic has very rarely come up...I should really read any of street magic.

Anyone involved in the talisman business is more likely to know about it, and that's not always the magically active. Smugglers and talismongers are the two types most likely to know about it.

It's similar to telesma that is collected in Puyallup and the Cascade mountains, but higher quality telesma in the Siberian wilderness and thus bigger payouts if you can get them back to the UCAS. Also far more dangerous than even those two fairly dangerous locales. Very wild and very magically active.

[Mantis]

I'd think anyone involved with smuggling would know that sort of thing. Not everyone involved in the talis trade is magical after all. In fact, you would only really need one magical person on either end, to verify that what was gathered would work as telisma and you don't need to be magical to gather reagents as none of the tests involved use magical skills (pgs 79-81 SM).
The Russians and the Yakut are in a sort of lukewarm war with each other so while there is a truce, either side would have little problem engaging in a little cross border raiding or whatever. Russia itself is highly militarized (pg 150 SWA) and would provide a good source of raw material for PMCs in the region. If you look at the map of Russian in the Sixth World Almanac you can see they are no longer much of a polar nation with only the North West part reaching the arctic and the rest of it sandwiched between the Yakut and Turkestan, Mongolia and Manchuria.
The section on Yakut in SWA should also spark some ideas. It certainly isn't too nations at war there. More like one nation and a bunch factions who only unify enough to keep the Russians at bay.
Also how do you manage to keep magic out of your games?

[Aryeonos]

My players usually don't play magical types, my city is only some 20 years old so not allot magic action there. I always thought magic types were exceedingly rare (1 in 100'000) so they don't show up much in my games. I had a player play as a vampire adept, and another is just a "regular" combat adept.

But yeah, I figure the campaign will be between Yakut, the north pole, and Turkistan.

[Mantis]

They aren't that rare. 1% of the population so in some places as common as a troll. If you had 100,000 people in the city 1000 would be magical. In the shadows that number is generally assumed to be higher as the shadows attract more of those individuals. Also magic has been around for 60+ years so even a 20 year old city will have magicians.
I was just surprised that you'd be playing Shadowrun without magic as it is a big component is really what makes the game stand out from any other cyberpunk game. I guess the key factor is your players don't play them and you haven't thrown magical opposition at them to make that a desirable character choice. Interesting.

[Aryeonos]

It wasn't a huge draw for me beyond the ambience of magic in the setting, but I'll make sure to mix in some more magical elements, hopefully I won't get a group of all mages in the adventure I just posted up, thanks guys for the advice though. I'll see you out there.