PinkCat: Running in the Shade “The Sword in the Studio” (A different sort of SR campaign report)

To understand what is going on here, you had best read the first PinkCat: Running in the Shade post, but short summary, this is a campaign report for our Shadowrun campaign set in NorCal through the filter of a cartoon made by one of the team members.

Episode Four: The Sword in the Studio

Guest Star:

• Usagi-kun, a literal street samurai -katana, topknot and all- and a rabbit.  (Representing Oda Nobunaga, bioware driven street samurai who has totally bought into bushido.  Played by A.  Having his animated alterego be a rabbit is entirely a tribute to Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo.)

The team (Pink, Glitter and Usagi-kun) is hired by Mr. Suit to sneak into a music industry luminary’s penthouse and steal a magic sword.  The music industry guy is portrayed as a cross between Elvis, Bono and Johnny Bravo and shows up a lot more in the cartoon than he did in the adventure.  In the cartoon, the team tries to sneak in in various ways, disguising themselves as pizza delivery people, pretending to be reporters, replacing the window washers (which is what we should have done in game, but I only just thought of it) all of which are inadvertently foiled by the music guy before finally scaling the building like a mountain while the music guy is off at a concert.  In the cartoon, it is a big golden sword stuck in a big golden record which will not fit through the door to the roof and they only get away with after the building security shoots enough pieces off the record that they can escape with it.  The cartoon ends with them driving off in the van with the hilt of the sword sticking out through a back window.

What really happened

was that we were hired to steal a katana from and plant a program in a music producer’s office (in an eighth-story penthouse office).  Oda was disguised as a courier to scout the inside of the building but other than that, we only speculated on other ways to get in before deciding that (homemade) grapple guns from the adjacent parking structure was the way to go.  PinkCat suppressed security via hacking while Oda and Sparky climbed the building, broke into the penthouse (which was fully enclosed in six cm thick armorglaz) planted the program and stole the katana (but not the saya, as it was fixed to the stand).  Getting out and fusing the lock just as security arrived . . . and watched the team run off through the roof garden through the armorglaz.  Sparky and Oda then rappelled down the building, hopped on their bikes and escaped.  Luckily avoiding any security.  The sword was returned and we were paid, victory!

A was slightly disappointed that his combat oriented character did not have a chance to show off his mad weapon skills but otherwise it was great fun.

Notes: Johnny Bravo picture from the internets, but he belongs to Cartoon Network and is not used with permission.  Katana photo by Bex Ross and used under a Creative Common Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Next episodes can be found here.