#5 Kalifornia Love

The story so far: we're playing a fool-punching shadowrunner who was hired by a sketchy employer to destroy a gigantic nightclub/recording studio/office building, only he never mentioned the destroying part. When we realised said destruction could endanger or end hundreds of lives -- all for the sake of profiting off of a site of magical power -- we betrayed our employer to the owner of the nightclub, a no-nonsense former musician and record label mogul named Kali. It ended with a big showdown between employer, myself and a deadly elemental seemingly commanded by another deadly elemental. We prevailed, but got an infamous reputation for betraying our Johnson.

Mitsuhama, of course, was Kali's secret sponsor. A little Reddit searching describes them as being ruthless but logical. No sadism or moustache twirling, just a straight line between "this makes us profit more efficiently" and "please do it for us". Very conservative Japanese corp, with (possible?) ties to the Yakuza.

Aztechnology is the most feared megacorp in the setting, and that's saying a lot. They've literally revived the old Aztec religion, human sacrifices and all, and it gives them great magical power. They also basically run the Mexican government (now called the Aztlan government). Originally claiming to be a Mecca for Hispanics everywhere, Aztlan ultimately devolved into an even more dystopic than usual nation in a dystopian setting.

As for us, we're finally out of more generic Seattle (in Shadowrun terms), and in California.

As for Calfree itself, after all these months of CK2, I think I really need a map.

Up north is Tir Tairngire, one of two prominent elven nations in the world. South, encompassing Los Angeles, (in the pink) is the Pueblo Corp Council and further south than that (including San Diego) is Aztlan territory.

This map is, unfortunately, set 10 years into the future of our campaign in the 2060s. But the same basic nations exist, even if the borders may have shifted.

Anyway, as promised, we start out on a set of docks.

They certainly look the part. To be honest, this isn't exactly where we started, but I'm impatient. We did get 1000 nuyen and 5 karma which I haven't spent yet. We have the safehouse music from Dragonfall in the background (the 'second portion' of Blood Hounds.)

An elf, a troll and two humans walk into a bar...

And this is definitely a 'familiar face'. It's Kali, in the flesh.

If Wix didn't give a character limit for names, Kalifornia Love would be my hardcoded subtitle for this series. As of today, I've decided to rename it -- both as a nod to Antumbra and sequels being an ode to Shadowrun's incarnation of the state, and also to mourn the fact that our colourful musical businesswoman is unromanceable.

Had we actually gone along with the plan, Kali would be proportionately bitter and would have been bailed out by our employer. They would be building this building.

Oh, interesting. As mentioned, Aztlan controls San Diego, and given their reputation it would make sense for people to ban them here.

Here we have a more conventional shadowrun than our first, with an employer we can actually trust this time.

ORKSOON

Kali's found her entrepreneurial niche. This feckless visioneering will only grow and grow as the campaign continues, mark my words! But seriously, yes this does sound like major incentive to leave Seattle while a very grateful Mitsuhama tries to exploit the magical site.

Better for you to benefit than that other Johnson. Not that he can any more.

Let's move forward.

I follow her to the taxi we passed on the way here.

I love how it's a 'cacaphony'. The narrator disapproves of this madness and he's letting you know in a very passive aggressive way.

The 'marines' mentioned here are Japanese Imperial marines. Led by Colonel Keiji Saito, they oversee the Japanese occupation of San Francisco (yes, that's a thing.)

The music playing in the club is the third, 'fast' portion of Blood Hounds. I see a trend here.

Our Johnson is... not what I expected from Mitsuhama. Japan itself has a strict no metahumans policy and its corporations often follow suit, at least at the highest ranks. I assume this guy's a local. But the way he's talking, the Aztech people are playing fast and loose with protocol as well.

This Johnson is, obviously, an elf. Elves are generally considered the most fortunate metahumans - they get the highest Quickness and Charisma caps of all major races, and no penalties to anything. They come in two varieties: immortal, ageless Tolkien-styled elves, most of whom have been alive since the Fourth World (the Age of Atlantis); and the run of the mill Awakened, D&D-styled elves who have a potential lifespan of centuries. Morally, elves are no superior to any other race, but many (immortal ones especially) look down on humans and other breeds of meta. What a shock. The world has two elven nations, both of which are racially exclusive and one of which figures later in the story.

That policy seems more a way to oppress metahumans than a serious security measure. Well supplied shadowrunners can easily get that. This very briefing is proof.

He gives me a thousand more nuyen and some useful advice. Then the options come up.

...but it's a giant Aztec pyramid. Who but Aztechnology would have the gumption to put up a giant Aztec pyramid in the middle of town?!

The second part is interesting. A lot of missions ask us to minimise carnage but we're being asked to maximise it. That's a new one.

Mostly standard, but it's interesting that the ground floor is so loosely guarded.

As for the question I'm about to ask, I already know the answer.

Hint: it isn't another street samurai.

With our questions exhausted and no SIN to our name, we decide to leave so we can meet everyone else.

Close to the entrance, we find an Aztlan elf chilling in a suspiciously magical-looking corner.

STOP RIGHT THERE CRIMINAL SCU- er, hi.

...you're a shaman, aren't you?

The 'corps are more practical than the marines at least.

This sums up one of the biggest reasons I like this series: it gives you a much larger view of the world outside of the shadows. Antumbra and sequels really dig into the ordinary lives of everyday people in a way that is only hinted at in Dead Man's Switch or Hong Kong.

Yes, you're a fearsome shadowrunner, but not everyone you meet is like you -- and the ordinary life is celebrated, rather than becoming a setpiece to your big, cool adventure. This approach gives us a glimpse of the greater world that's going to be affected by our decisions.

With that over with, we abandon Necalli and head south, where we find a troll surrounded by consoles, named 'The Dave'. I assume this is a Big Lebowski reference.

"The Dave" is a troll decker. And as TormentedbyGnomes once put it, he's isn't a "lolololol" tribe troll either, he's an actual horned, stony-pelted metahuman. An unconventional choice.

I mentioned deckers briefly in my introduction - they're the setting's hackers, who navigate through computer systems at computational speeds using interface hardware that plugs right into their brains, called a datajack. The name comes from the giant keyboard-shaped computers that they carry with them, called 'decks'. They experience the inside of systems through Shadowrun's VR-based Matrix - basically the successor to the internet.

...he's a troll decker surrounded by decking equipment.

Man, if we needed you to explain what you sold, we probably wouldn't have the Intelligence to use it anyway.

Oh, so he's a ripperdoc too (someone who installs cyberware). Okay, that I didn't know. Also, I hope he's just messing with us - a Fairlight Excalibur is the top-level deck in all three iterations of the game, and it's worth 5000 nuyen!

Kali does inspire a special kind of respect, doesn't she? We're finished with The Dave for now. We'll need riggerdoc services when we start buying cyberware, but we aren't there yet - his stuff isn't worth the sacrifice.

We go east toward the stairs, and encounter a girl hiding between the lockers with a bat.

...uh..

We cut to the most pressing question first.

I'd say this was too good to be true, but considering what else she sells, it makes sense for her to have access to fake SINs too. What does concern me is that she's giving the 'quality' pitch. This probably won't be cheap.

Let's take a gamble.

Oh shush.

Ah... a libertarian.

Our rebellion against the corps, the marines and other powers is apparently like the Boston Tea Party only for guns instead of tea.

That's all we need from her. We head upstairs to find the dance floor blazing.

Literally.

As with Club Antumbra, there are smoke effects, various people doing various things, a DJ's booth, and cycling colours. And a wall of FIRE. No, two walls of fire. Holograph, I assume.

We head past what appears to be a barman...

...and up to the third floor, which appears to be some kind of lounge area.

To the south-west, we see our favourite scoundrel, Dalmin.

And by favourite, I mean the guy I was hoping not to see again. We talk to him nevertheless.

That's 1nv4d3r. Full of surprises.

Just making a note that the prostitute is first on his list -- and that he has worldwide information on this kind of thing. Sigh.

Alright, we can be a little sympathetic about metahuman prejudice.

Moving on, we ask about Dalmin's skills - not because we're planning to hire him but just to ensure none of those skills risk burning the building down or shorting out the power while we're away.

Now I'm just morbidly curious...

...and he decides to be cagey about the figure until we get a fake SIN. Fine then.

North of us is the Most Interesting Ork in the World. How else do I describe a guy standing in front of a bottle of alcohol in a nightclub/bar holding what looks like an AK-47 in one hand and wearing what looks like a Buddhist prayer necklace?

Intrigued by this unlikely warrior-monk, we head over.

I love Orion. Orion is like an orkish Nation of Islam era Malcolm X, only more violent. He's my second-favourite companion in principle, even if his actual abilities are practically never useful for me. (My favourite companion in principle is easily guessed if you've played Antumbra before, but most of you haven't, bwa ha.)

Orkland, formerly Oakland, CA. Now full of orks, and... no longer full of oaks? With the unbelievable pollution in the Sixth World, I wouldn't be surprised.

Also, note the completely different take on prejudice to Dalmin, who managed to make the authoritarian lockdown of San Francisco all about himself (or 'dwarves like' himself').

This and the previous question work better with a non-ork character, of course, but Orion's motivations here come up with another, more antagonistic character later in the story -- and that person is actually why I made 1nv4d3r an ork in the first place.

Also, he's missing the point. In a high-tech world, using paper at all is a statement. Not only is Orion an intellectual, but he has class, a detail that he seems to take for granted. "Pen and sword in accord" is one thing, but we have automatic rifles in the mix here.

There's a trope for this guy (everyone familiar with me and my work issues a collective sigh to shake the heavens). The big difference is that Orion's flavour of culture is more grassroots and grounded in reality, which - frankly, I'm a fan.

As for me asking despite probably not needing his skills, I just need to know, man.

It seems Orion is in a worse position than Dalmin. Freedom fighter shenanigans gone wrong, perhaps? We leave him for the moment.

Sayōnara, warrior.

We double back to talk to a little lady near the entrance who we passed on our way in.

She is literally the poster girl of the series. The campaign comes with fanart of her and a potential player-character, which happens to be on the top of my site.

In concept, she's a cheerful, optimistic decker-rigger, a more wholesome answer to Dragonfall's shifty hacker, Blitz. Not particularly unique.

In personality though, she's literally my favourite companion in the series - by which I mean the three campaigns, not the three modules of the Antumbra campaign. One might cite her friendly personality for this, one might instead argue that I have a soft spot for innocent female companions but my answer to that would be simply YOU-HAVE-NO-PROOF.

Dunkelzahn is most likely the best known dragon in the world. He's also something of a saint, far as dragons go, truly benevolent and much beloved. He also has a trideo show called Wyrm Talk, through which he educates viewers about magic and the Sixth World.

...yes to rawr. No to the show.

So to recap: this young lady isn't a SINless shadowperson: she's a normal university-aged girl who uses her decking skills to make fake SINs and plans to break into shadowrunning with one of them. Which sounds like just what we need.

On the one hand this is what Amelia was warning us about - but on the other hand, do we really need them for anything else?

D'aww. Yeah, we can do that. Back to business though.

That's a practical mindset at least. As a rigger she wouldn't - or shouldn't - need to be in the thick of the action.

Like deckers, I also mentioned riggers in my introduction. Similar to deckers, they sport datajacks. But instead of 'decking' into foreign systems, they 'rig' into familiar ones - a combat or support drone, usually, but also mundane vehicles. We hear a lot of lore stories about riggers being amazing stunt drivers or handling heavy machinery but in the game proper, they're usually just puppetting drones around.

Of course, if you're both decker and rigger, you probably won't have a weapon slot and you might need to spend combat in hiding. At least you can use the same datajack for both.

omg she just tells us this right out in the open

As flippant as she is about this, she's still coming off as more sympathetic than Dalmin.

Bye for now, little tech-pixie.

We spot a terminal in a corner.

Surely it can't be this easy.

Spoiler: it can't.

We head downstairs instead.

Curses!

Heading back upstairs, we find this ork on the dancefloor.

Still doing my best impression of a ping-pong ball, I head in Voire's direction.

As promised, Voire is in the corner. The far corner.

Ouch. Granted he has a point.

Let's keep prodding for no reason!

Eesh. Not what I was expecting, especially playing a metahuman myself. Only the part about 'plans' removes some of the sympathy. What are you people up to?

Ouch. Then again, this guy might be some kind of extremist, so lukewarm praise could be a good thing. Let's get to business.

Finally, we get not one but two etiquettes we can use. We also inadvertently confirm that 'Voire' is as dangerous as he seems.

"Norton's Army"? Hmph.

'Armed' (heh) with this information, we backtrack to The Dave.

...who sends us back to the terminal upstairs.

...as if one Imperial armed force in Calfree wasn't enough.

...here ends our wild and wonderful adventure. We return to our little partner in crime.

Isn't she precious? Anyway, let's deliver the news.

After all that, we might as well run with her.

Our time is up, and we head back to Mr Johnson.

Not pictured here: Dalmin charges more (750) and so does Orion (650) but if you pull the race card on Orion (either by pointing out orkiness or saying you'll get to hunt humans), you can get a reduction to 450.

We're off to Pyramid Operations!