Shiriki's a smart guy, with Logic 6. He knows the history of Massacre Canyon and can put 2-and-2 together.

GM ruling: we're landing on the edge/lip of the canyon. Let's not be too literal; we'll go with the spirit of the intent.

Speaking of spirits...

You are all consciously (or subconsciously) affected by the background count. I was going to give suggestions very much in line with Shiriki's approach. That said, I would suggest that Shiriki (Pawnee) should feel gloom and sadness. Dan-Dan and Chante (Sioux) should be feeling aggressive and confrontational. Swoopy, who is more Anglo than not, can feel however he wants.

As an aside, I watched The Revenant last night and there was a one-line aside (not central to the plot) about a Pawnee man's family being killed by the Sioux.

I plan to IC post sometime today. Feel free to keep RPing.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:11, Mon 14 Aug 2017.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 51):

@Tec, that works for me. Given that in his early life he was being prepped to be a magically active finger-waggler it'd make a lot of sense for him to have some understanding there.

ETA: this week is my last week at the day job. I am also having to balance that with prep for the upcoming semester, which starts next Monday. I should still have time for posting, but ICs may be on the short side, and I may miss a day here or there. Fair warning.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:56, Mon 14 Aug 2017.

It sounds like Jayde is GenCon'ing this week and rednblack is in crunch-time at work, so we might be at half-staff this week.

@Jayde What are you requesting a separate thread for? The table with plot points and Edge and the like?

Swoopy's earlier IC post had us exiting the storm, so the blizzard is done. There is plenty of snow on the ground to contend with. There's a full moon, which will reflect off the snow and provide for excellent visibility. (Side note: about twenty years ago I was driving through rural Oregon in the middle of the night in very similar conditions. The moonlight reflecting off the snow was so bright that my headlights basically did nothing. It was like having them on in the middle of the day, as far as additional lumination was concerned.)

Swoopy's recent IC post is suggesting a quick foray into Sioux territory to drop off Ité in friendlier arms. As previously noted, it's not that far away (~20km west). The risk/reward equation is the wrath of your superiors vs. the probability of Ité surviving.

Let's come to some shared understandings about the the UCAS/Sioux border. There is no wall, because walls are expensive and not terribly effective against modern ordinance - but there is at least some fancy fencing to help keep the Anglos and their cows on the right side of the cornfield.

Security is primarily sensor- and drone-based, and most of those are intended for long-range detection. The Sioux are more concerned about Ares Ocelot and Ares Scorpion assault and battle tanks (p.168-9, War!) than illegal immigrants, which are so rare as to be a laughable notion. Smugglers rate somewhere in the middle, with the occasional battery of SAMs or Ruhrmetall Vogelhund Air Defense Vehicles (mobile anti-air support) to let the LAVs know that they mean business. There are spirits and watchers on patrol too, but let's be honest that it's a big border. The good/bad news is that there isn't much in the way of geographical complications, so the sensors have good, long, wide views of the surrounding terrain.

I'll leave some of the more precise details vague so that, in the spirit of Anarchy, there's room for people to fill in the blanks.

Highway 34 (leading west) will have a heavily-fortified border crossing. We can use Coyotes for reference material if that crossing is of interest.

Today is the day of the Great Ghost Dance. If I wasn't in crunch time at work, I'd have Shiriki regale everyone with the time he met Daniel Howling Coyote, but we'll have to save that for another day -- to be fair, it's not a very good story anyway.

For our present situation, what is everyone's thoughts? Should we try to hike out way out and stay under their radar? We could also just blast them out of Massacre Canyon with the Dragon's Assault Cannon. Given our approach, the gun should be facing in that direction anyway, but I'd be happy to spend a plot point, if necessary. ICly we may want to shy away from doing so, as the UCAS military has just pulled out, and setting off heavy ordnance may well bring them right back in.

Indeed it is. I actually went outside this morning and looked south to Mt. Rainier at 10:32am to see if anything would happen. It was cloudy so I couldn't see the mountain, but I waited a couple minutes to listen for any explosions. I didn't hear any so I presume everything is fine.

Let's do a group award of 1 karma to celebrate this non-milestone.

GenCon concluded on Sunday so I'm hoping that Jayde is back online soon.

In the meantime, let's get some discussion around Swoopy's idea of dropping Ité off across the Sioux border, orders be damned. Everyone is encouraged to offer input.

We still need input on Swoopy's plan from the following people:

- Chante
- Dan-Dan
- Shiriki

In other words, everyone who is not Swoopy.

You're on the lip of the canyon. You can detonate the Ares Dragon with the vapors in its tank plus the two grenades still in its launcher. You have a snowplow and two police cruisers closing on your position, but you still have a few minutes before they arrive.

It sounds like Swoopy's post suggests that there is a tourist center of some sort, with ATVs for rent that the Anglos can use to further defile the Amerind sacred grounds. The ATVs can be repurposed for reasonable mobility. Under ideal conditions, they could get 100km or more from their 12-liter tanks, but heavy snow and hauling around Ité do not make for ideal conditions. How long the gas will last, only Ghost knows.

Gen Con was a good time.  You'll be happy to know that I hold the dubious honor of collecting to most edge from my table during the CDT introductory run of the Chicago arc finale for Missions.

That's between both Origins and Gen Con... 15 Edge and one character dead.

It's a rough but very satisfying scenario!

They basically held off on running it til Saturday night and then ALL tables ran it.

I've gone ahead and posted in the IC.

If the purpose of the explosion is to create a diversion, Shiriki can keep his jammer. If the purpose is to create a diversion, and possibly knock out the budding CFD infection, it'll be a necessary part of the EMP.

Let's see how the Hacking goes.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/543265 ]LOG (7) + Hacking (5) - Noise (2) = 10 dice.[/url]: 8#10d6t5 0 5 3 2 2 3 4 4

Opposing with 8 dice.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/543266]V. Hacking = 8 dice.[/url]: 8#8d6t5 1 3 3 1 1 1 3 2

That gets us 7 ATVs. Should be enough if we double up on a few to have some for transport and still send some off as a decoy. Chante's plan is for the inferno to maybe look like it killed us, though, so Shiriki will hold off on giving any orders.

Good IC posts, everyone. I'm going to kick it back to Chante to make the final call and I can IC it out from there.

Chante is going to call up her smuggler contact.

When we deploy, we are given something called a 'blood chit'.  each chit has a serial number and is a sensitive item.  The chit has a message written in the language of the country we're in and the serial number is on each corner.

The message basically states that any aid given to the Soldier who presents it will be rewarded with monetary compensation.  The Soldier tears a corner and gives that corner to the person who aids.  That person then presents this (however they may) to the US and will receive that pay.

So, I imagine the Wildcats may have something similar.  She'll use that as a means to promise payment.

The idea is that the smuggler comes into town, lays low, keeps tabs on what's going on, let's the local medical worker do what he can, then takes Ite to the next place.

This frees the team up to move on and hopefully the smuggler gets there in time and can render the additional aid that the team can't (by moving him to better facilities or if deemed safe, back across the border).

Ok, so it looks like our next steps are to try to lose the UCAS militia, and not be re-intercepted by any passing watcher spirits. @Tec, what would you like in that regards? Also, Shiriki's strategy will be dependent on a shared understanding of the world and astral perception. As far as the Watcher Spirits go, is something small like a Fly Spy likely to be seen? If not, Shiriki will deploy both Fly Spies, sending one to keep track of how the milita responds and their general whereabouts. The other will be sent to scout out our best way forward and minimize the chance of having to double back in the event of a dead end.

IRL from Massacre Canyon there's a slightly wooded area running along the Republican River as well east as Culbertson. Keeping near trees should affect our astral imprint, and the cover in general will be good against meat and drone-based surveillance as well. Shiriki will recommend that we duck south to the mountain range 5-6 KM east of Highway 17, and then head into McCook through the valleys. This will mean that we need to take a short jaunt across some farmland, but we should otherwise have very good coverage for the whole trip.

If we can get Chante's smuggler contact to pick Ite up in McCook, then we may be able to leave him with the ceraprax addict there, and then continue on our way toward St. Louis.

What do you guys think?

While Shiriki is working out the kinks in his head, he's at least going to get the team moving eastward, and toward the Republican river.

I'll put in a roll for Navigation and Sneaking. Ok, so no Navigation skill, so how Tracking instead.

Tracking:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/544793 ]LOG (7) + Tracking (2) = 9 dice.[/url]: 9d6t5 5

I don't think this would be too terribly difficult with the good lighting conditions and probably the Fly Spy to help. Almost feels like a waste of a good roll.
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/544797]Easy Opposing Roll = 6 dice.[/url]: 6d6t5 3

Sneaking:
[url=http://orokos.com/roll/544800]AGI (8) + Stealth (3) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1) = 14 dice.[/url]: 14d6t5 5

I will admit that I haven't heard of a blood chit. However, I have been thinking about the question of currency for a couple months now, especially since Anarchy rolls money together with karma.

Twenty-some years ago, I read a book called Bravo Two Zero about a British SAS mission behind Iraqi lines during Desert Storm. One detail I remember from this is that every soldier had gold coins sewn into the waistline of their fatigues that could be used to bribe an otherwise uncooperative goat herder or whoever else they came across that might be more interested in nuggets than nationalism.

When the game started, I debated giving everyone ____ karma worth of American gold eagles. At the time I decided against it because I figured that Chapter One was straight-forward enough that the money was unlikely to be necessary.

I thought again about introducing them at the beginning of Chapter Two. I decided against it because, from a gameplay perspective, I didn't want the response to be, "ok wiz let's just pool our money and hire one of our smuggler contacts to fly us to St. Louis" since that would largely defeat the purpose of the game.

This daisy-chains into other logical questions like, "How do we treat money that we, um, acquire in the course of our travels?" and "What about my food/housing/clothing/deployment/special-duty/hardship-duty/medical-provider pay and allowances that I'm presumably accumulating but not spending right now?"

The answer to these is that we'll be using your available karma to represent available funds you may or may not have to draw from. Yes, it's goofy because you'll be earning a lot of karma over the course of 24 hours, but we'll work within the system. I think Shiriki is the only one who pre-spent his Chapter Two karma like I said you could, so this technically gives you an allowance to draw from.

Circling back to the beginning, I'm going to give everyone enough American Gold Eagles to represent 1 karma = ¥2,000 for bribes. I'm then going to take all of them back by making the pooled amount the price that Chante's coyote, Paytah 'Peter' Venom-Spitter, is charging for the requested services. The price is high, but so is the risk, given the border lockdown between the Sioux and UCAS at the moment.

Going forward, you may spend karma as nuyen per the Anarchy rules. Whether that karma takes the form of another American gold eagle magically appearing (which would be appropriate for a bribe) or something conveniently appearing when you need/want it (like Shiriki's new Doberman) we can decide based on whatever makes the most sense in context and/or whatever makes the best story. This does come with the explicit (I'm making it explicit right now) understanding that you can't just throw karma/money at your problems to make them disappear. You can certainly use money to grease the wheels, but if we start accomplishing too much with money then I'm going to ratchet up the pressure in other ways.

I probably won't have time to IC until Wednesday evening at the earliest. Venom-Spitter will accept the job but with conditions. First, he needs two hours to get to you, because it's 1am and he's not exactly waiting around for your call, plus there's a blizzard between you, plus there might be a war too. Second, he won't go within 5km of Massacre Canyon because he's superstitious and also the place makes him want to irrationally murder people, which is bad for business. Third, you need to not have any tails. The job is hot enough without starting from scratch with heat. So, in order to procure his services, you need to 1) stay alive for a couple hours, 2) reach a new rendezvous point, and 3) lose your trackers.

Anyone who wants to IC something along those lines is more than welcome to. Otherwise, I'll try to do it Wednesday.

---

I think that covers Chante's post. I'll move on to Shiriki's.

Let's treat watchers like F1 spirits. They are well-meaning but dumb. If you were going to duck into a church hoping that the background count would confuse them, then they wouldn't pursue you in there but they'd be bright enough to just wait for you to come out. But Massacre Canyon is a much more ingenious solution. They will reach the perimeter of the background count - say a kilometer or two - and will stop because they don't want to be dismembered by the churning mana. The canyon and it's background count are long enough that they can't surround the entire thing to wait for you to emerge. Thus, passing through the canyon using Shiriki's plan will effectively lose your magical surveillance as long as you're not engaged in some running gun battle that will simply put you back on the radar as soon as you emerge from the background count. Dealing with the militia first and then winding your way through the canyon is a valid approach. Trying to distract and/or outrun the militia on the ATVs are also valid approaches. Or you could waste the militia and take their vehicles, or any other combination that you find suitable.

I'm not entirely sure how long Massacre Canyon is, but McCook looks like a reasonable rendevouz point with Venom-Spitter.

Shiriki will have zero issues with Navigation/Tracking. He comes up with a good plan.

What's the Sneaking roll for, precisely? ATVs blasting through powdered snow aren't exactly stealthmobiles, or did you have something else in mind?

Watchers are dumb and see on the astral. They're unlikely to see any drone, even if it was on top of them, playing a marching tune and setting off howitzers. The flyspys should be OK.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, as watchers would still notice the astral "shadows" cast by a drone (or a vehicle or a howitzer). Now a Fly-Spy isn't going to cast a large shadow, but nor are drones perfectly invisible just because they are mechanical instead of organic.

IC is up.

I'm still unclear on what the exact plan is for the next five minutes. Outrun the law? Gun them down? Distract them with illusions and explosions?

@Shiriki Let me know what that Sneaking roll was for.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 67):

Why not all of the above?

Gun them down with a near miss (no casualties but let's give them the willies before they head into the canyon). Distract with explosions and illusion. Run the gauntlet and lose them in the mix.

It's multilayer. It reinforces and supports itself. If any one element fails (although a miss is better than casualties)it's no big deal. If they all come off we can slink in the chaos.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:32, Thu 31 Aug 2017.

The Sneaking roll is to avoid detection by the incoming UCAS militia. Some things to keep in mind: ATVs are loud, but snow is damping. Across a level surface, the sounds of the ATVs will still travel a good distance, but 1. the UCAS militia are likely gunning their own engines trying to make up the distance, 2. their windows are likely up because cold as balls Nebraska winter, and 3. when we do hit the riverbed the topography should eat up a lot of our sound emissions. GM call on whether or not ATVs are electric or gas-powered. The latter will be much louder than the former.

An explosion, coupled with a few decoy ATVs will also be distracting.

A Spirit's Concealment power would also go a long way.

Considering the visibility situation, I think it will be more difficult to avoid LoS with the incoming militia than the sound angle. @Tec, let me know if I'm off base here, as Shiriki would have a better idea than I would what we're up against.

@Dan-Dan, I agree. If we can still blow the Dragon if it's down one or two rounds on the Assault Canon, Shiriki will be in favor of letting off a round, preferably toward the Gopher. No snow plow = much slower incoming speed. I'm also of the impression that our mission parameters have changed, so the no lethal force directive should be off the table at this point.

Due to the nature of PbP I'm a little unsure how to proceed here. Shiriki would obviously check with his superior officer before making a call like this, but waiting on that here would bog down the game another day or so. I'm not going to do that. Instead, I'm rolling for an attack and defense, and making that roll secret to Tec. @Chante, if Chante would tell Shiriki not to try to frag up those anglos, then the roll never happened, but this way that decision won't be tainted by OOC info.

I'm going to spend a Plot Point for Malfunction (Gopher doesn't get Armor)

url=http://orokos.com/roll/545811 Dragon Shooting: AGI (8) + Vehicle Weapons (6) + Control Rig (2) + VR (1)  = 17 dice.: 17d6t5 7

I forgot the -3 for the defender moving at top speed. Since I don't have Shadow Amps for piloting a vehicle like the Dragon, that penalty should have been included.
http://orokos.com/roll/545812 -3 for defending vehicle moving: 3d6t5 0
Cool, so 7 Hits.

I'm going to go with the Soldier stats, as I'd bet the rough and tumble cops out near the western edge of the UCAS border are better than the rent-a-cops.
http://orokos.com/roll/545813 AGI (5) + LOG (3) = 8 dice. 8d6t5 2

12P base, staged up to 17P. Hopefully, that should grind it to a halt.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:02, Fri 01 Sept 2017.

I'd still try avoid casual at this point (at least until they're plausibly deniable) if we can, since it's going to generate far less heat down the line. It's pretty obvious you don't want to be the ones to start off the war if you can. It's far more likely we'd be hung out to dry to make peace if that happens than be backed by the Sioux command.

In reply to Dan-Dan (msg # 70):

I'm not entirely sure what Dan-Dan is saying, as some of the language seems to be contradictory.

Your plausible deniability is pretty much gone. You were at the site of a military base that simultaneously blew up and imploded. You've already engaged in one gun battle with UCAS forces. They've tracked you this far. You know who they are and they know who you are.

Whether or not there is a war is up to the diplomats. Now, you can certain make their jobs easier or tougher depending on your actions behind enemy lines. Your orders to remain non-lethal (count coup) have not been lifted. Your orders are to get to St. Louis. Whether you determine those orders are contradictory or mutually exclusive is up to you. How much you trust Sioux command is also up to you.

Broadly speaking, the Wildcats command structure can be depended on not to hang its troops out to dry. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones with a seat at the table. The Office of Military Intelligence (OMI) is an internal rival and is far more pragmatic about Sioux assets and their roles (or lack thereof) in the grand scheme of things.

To be clear, you are not obligated (from a GM perspective) to follow orders. Chante has decided to trust the powers that be for the time being. If that changes, and your direction changes as a result, then the game will as well.

Going back to our Chapter 1 discussion, I wanted there to be a Captain to break ties in decision-making, not to introduce a potential veto to any in-game decision. I am much more interested in reducing OOC friction than I am in perfectly mirroring a realistic command structure. In this case I will give Chante an opportunity to override Shiriki, since the decision is fairly pivotal, but for the most part we'll be declaring and resolving our actions individually rather than letting the nature of PbP grind us to a halt in the process of consensus-forming.

Further, if it hasn't been obvious, Chante's pretty open to the team doing what needs done, for better or worse.  If it ends up being a dumb idea, the whole team will probably be heated about it, so that's the control.

In reply to TecGM (msg # 71):

I meant: say we get off the grid, we can make any killing we do look like it's by some other source. Whether we're believed of not, it's plausibly deniable, meaning without solid evidence we have more latitude whilst following the spirit but not the letter of our orders.

I edited Shiriki's OOC post so that it shows the rolling he did in private.

Due to wind, etc. you have to wait until the Gopher is within 500 meters to get a reasonable shot. You don't need to take a penalty for the defender in a moving vehicle because in this case the vehicle is moving directly toward you. You do have a penalty for crappy conditions, but the -3 you already rolled (with no subtracted hits) will suffice for that.

rednblack spends a plot point to avoid the Gopher's 12 points of armor. That delivers 17P directly to the Gopher. The APDS ammo in the heavy machine gun shreds the snowplow like tin foil. The rounds continue through into the engine block, turning it into Swiss cheese.

The Gopher's Condition Monitor is 13 boxes, which are totally filled. The four boxes of overflow represent the rounds that pour through the windshield that chew up the two members of the redneck militia, "Handfishin" and "One Punch". They each take 4P, thanks to the APDS.

An exaggeration, but this is how they'll tell the story if they make it: https://media.giphy.com/media/11t7vv2xFWW448/giphy.gif

That will stop their progress cold. The two sheriffs are bright enough (and sober enough) to know that they are completely outmatched. They have Remington shotguns are utterly inadequate for the range in question. They stop and render aid to the two good ol' boys who are bleeding. They also call for "backup," whatever that means out here.

@rednblack, the IC post is yours if you want it.

Top-notch IC post, rednblack. I really liked it.

I'll take the next IC post, which I hope to get up this afternoon or evening.

In the meantime, a little popcorn to keep you on your toes. One of the sheriffs found a hunting rifle in the Gopher and will take some potshots at you. We'll say five shots, one for everyone, and I'll roll them in alphabetical order.

http://orokos.com/roll/547650]Agility + Firearms - Environment Modifiers: 5#1d6t5 0 hits 0 hits 0 hits 0 hits 0 hits

Well, that's no fun. Not surprising, but no fun. Anyway, you hear rounds whipping through the air around you, but the sheriff doesn't hit anything but snow.

I've posted a secret medicine roll to scalp Shiriki and appease the spirits without damaging him too much. I imagine he'll be fine...
Medicine 8  + logic 6 + gifted healer 2[/url]: 17d6t5 7 ]]
This message was last edited by the player at 10:09, Wed 06 Sept 2017.