Neon Jungle Plot

Neon Jungle Plot
This page is to try and publish Plot Information and Character Knowledge. The core of this change is the idea of promoting improved transparency for better player experience. This specific release is to give players more information about the metaplot and narrative. We will still impose a strict separation of Player Knowledge (Meta-Knowledge) from Character Knowledge (Diegetic Knowledge) but we are hoping that this show of trust to the players will lead to greater investment into the plot. We also hope it will provide a greater willingness for flexibility from players, who may have their own stories that they want to tell, but which we aren’t in a position to pursue.

Player Knowledge
Season 2’s plot has been closed with finality: the Cabal is broken, only one of the three remaining alive (Rumor). The Morrigan, while still free, no longer has agents to stir up trouble, and the spirit of Seattle may yet return to a calmer state. The supernatural threats to the safety of the city as a whole have waned, letting people begin to recover and rebuild from the mass of shadow spirits, awakened drugs, riots, police infighting, and shadowrunner wars.

Knight Errant is recovering and rebuilding from infiltration and a subsequent purge of Cabal plants, and Crimson Kabuto has been revealed to have been corrupted and primarily annihilated. This leaves the relatively incompetent Lone Star as a primary source of security that isn’t corrupted or heavily damaged, and they are attempting to expand out of Bellevue.

As old threats pass and the guards grow weary, the syndicates are waking up to a world where they may profit. The syndicates are taking over the reconstruction, and by extension the functioning, of the city, piece by piece, while the megacorps watch over their profits and the government has been exhausted by the Cabal struggle. War between the syndicate factions is inevitable, however, as the age-old Triads/Yakuza rivalry is already sparking, the White Vory are infiltrating again, and the Mafia has taken starting the war as its primary agenda.

The Triads, arguably a “humanitarian” syndicate, are creating “relief efforts” in the city to “help rebuild” - including rebuilding sources of profit for themselves. A white hat can still be profitable, as they are fond of saying. While they have lost some leadership lately, due to their straight-forward command structure, the replacements are already ready to work. Nonetheless, they have recently fused two formerly-rival organizations and may have growing pains yet to come.

The Yakuza are putting their fingers in many pies; they have already begun to infiltrate into Lone Star as well as putting enforcers in KE and setting themselves up to take over the law in the unruly parts of the city and extort all they can from it. They are nonetheless marred by conflict between feckless opportunism and a more careful, long-term approach that leaves enough profit to extract again later.

Perhaps most subtle of the major syndicates, the Mafia are on the move, aiming to set the other syndicates ablaze in a war to hide their own operations. A rare alliance has been produced between the three major families of Seattle to get this done, because if the other syndicates can be sabotaged, the profits of rebuilding the city is all theirs.

The Vory, on the other hand, have no hand in subtlety. They are being largely moved by EVO at the moment, and moved towards restoring order - but always an order that helps EVO locate interesting new subjects for their experiments.

Prominent Actors
These are the leaders of each relevant group:
 * Lone Star: Tyler Grummet is the current deputy chief of police for Lone Star Security Services, and while the actual chief of police, William Louden, is busy clearing up paperwork nightmares with corporate and the local government of Seattle over the riots and destruction wrought by the Cabal, Grummet is trying to put the whole thing back together on the ground - and wants his organization cleaned out without the blood running through like KE’s current state. Unfortunately for him, this is letting Yakuza slip into his company.
 * Triads: Rick Wu, former leader of the Eighty-Eights and now leader of the Eighth Octagon Triad, has recently integrated the Eighty-Eights and the Octagon Triad into a larger organization. Unlike normal for the Triads, the Eighth Octagon has fingers in matrix crime and an unusually high recruitment of technomancers off the streets, in addition to the omnipresent magical strength of triads. The organization has known ties to the Red Dragon Association, and likewise tends to take the long view of things.
 * Yakuza: Hanzo Shotozumi is the head of the Shotozumi family, and his influence is far-reaching. While the Yakuza only operate properly in extraterritorial property and Japan, they have interests in expanding Shiawase’s imperial edicts to reconstruction, as they can profit from that. As Shiawase has taken contracts with the Star, the Yakuza has been infiltrating it like the insidious poison it is. The member factions present in Seattle, Kenran, Shigeda, and Shotozumi proper, are all used to working together, and their loyalty to Hanzo is established and unquestioned.
 * Mafia: Joseph Gianelli. Primary actor responsible for the mafia family alliance, Gianelli is willing to bend some of the rules of the conservative Mafia to ally with the Irish mob, the Finnigans, but few enough to score an alliance with the more conservative Ciarnello family. His hold over the alliance is tenuous, but he’s willing to do most things, including getting other mob bosses killed, in order to maintain it.
 * Vory: Aleksander Bilotkiy is the current leader of the “Red” Vory in Seattle, having ascended to a bloodstained throne with brutal force. The “White” Vory have a limited presence due to his quick and bloody shutdowns of their operations. While he’s been recently enjoying the benefits of EVO support, he has to be constantly on the watch for White Vory.

Player Knowledge
The events of Season 1 have come to a head, despite the best efforts of the Order of St. Sylvester. The three members of the Cabal were able to set up the ritual to summon forth the Morrigan and make a twisted deal with them. The Morrigan promised to assist in finally awakening the Spirit of Seattle, if the Cabal bring war and chaos to the city. As such, the Cabal set up and released the Nights of Sorrows, and the Morrigan upheld their side of the bargain. Now the slumbering astral leviathan has begun to rise. This causes a cascade effect that rippled through Seattle for a period of several days, stirring up unwanted emotions and causing many to take to the streets causing widespread panic and chaos.

The Spirit of Seattle will, now awake, is free to move around and influence the city to its own whims. The eyes of the Morrigan, now laid upon the city and the Cabal, roam and meander as they please. They have no allegiance to either side, but instead seek to provide subtle nudges and touches to help maintain the war they feed on. The Cabal now turns to finding a way to capture, coerce, or otherwise bind the Spirit of Seattle and use its power for their own goals. Leaving the city to deal with the Nights of Sorrows.

Knight Errant, who has been having some internal struggles, is slow to react. It is almost a full day before the Knights get on the streets in force. Their response is brutal but without consistent guidance. This causes several miscommunications and missteps before they are able to restore a semblance of order more than 72 hours after the incident has started. After order is beginning to be restored KE is turning inwards to deal with the internal rot with orders from Ares itself to take any means necessary to preserve the contract.

Reacting with much more discipline, Crimson Kabuto first restores order to their areas of influence, mostly consisting of parts of Redmond and Bellevue. The swift response however creates bastions of safety that people flock to. They slowly expand from these bases of power to restore order in an organized and efficient fashion. With the withdrawal of KE to deal with its own problems, many smaller corps are turning to the Crimson Kabuto to provide temporary or even permanent security.

The Cabal is basking in its success, having spent much of Season One spreading seeds and disinformation throughout several corps and government. They now rely on this network they have created along with the chaos that currently grips the city to set up the second phase of their plans.

Factional Faces
The main representatives for their respective factions. If a job is coming, it’ll most likely be from these few handing it out as they guide the situation.

Knight Errant
Blitzkrieg - Adam Winston, long time chief of the Knight Errant stationed out of Everett and natural born Ares citizen. Goes by the callsign of Blitzkrieg on operations. Former HTR his career is storied eventually earning him the rank of Chief. He has been tasked to root out the moles within the security corp and reestablish order with whatever means necessary. He and his hand picked team are staging an inquisition of sorts that has more of the Knight Errant officers looking over their shoulders, and standing up straight. Blitzkrieg has given up a lot of himself in his line of duty. His face is much more worn and weary than someone in his early forties should look, grey hair already coming in. A series of scars wind around his body from several altercations he’s had in his time as part of HTR - some of them simple cuts and bullets wounds, others much nastier like acid claw marks from a toxic beast spirit. His ‘ware is kept in perfect working order due to his maintaining it himself.

Crimson Kabuto
ColdCase - Professionally going by Eric Lanston, ColdCase is a matrix specialist and former Lonestar detective turned Crimson Kabuto consultant. Most people find him charming and friendly if a little intense. He is obsessive about having information on every single person he plans on meeting, including runners. He is known for having little patience for people who are not at least polite and professional. Against his boss’s wishes, he is digging into the new drugs floating around despite them mainly being distributed in KE areas. A middle aged dwarf with a well trimmed blond beard and hair, often dressed in clothes more comfortable in a 1920’s private-eye or detective drama. Continuous late nights and his intense work ethic has caused him to look perpetually tired. Even though his cybereyes are upgraded with each new iteration they still manage to give off the impression that he is about to fall asleep.

Cabal Alchemical Squad
Poultice - Is an apprentice of Rumor. Herself something of a myth said to be particularly gifted. A talent that has thus far kept her alive. Her master wants to keep the city absolutely distracted by pumping out the drug made from her own recipe and getting as many people addicted as possible. She has clashed with Knight Errant and Crimson Kabuto a few times seeming to be a ever present thorn in their side. Even though Rumor would disapprove, she chose to keep the city busy by being as loud and chaotic as possible. This plays on her personality which is very chaotic as well. Poultice loves playing up the mad scientist angle, wearing a purposefully tattered lab coat that hangs from her shoulders like rags. She prides herself in her looks that are well-maintained. Her hair is purple and keeps it tied in a loose ponytail. Almost always wears a pair of enchanter gloves and carries a bandolier of various alchemicals to keep handy. The rest of her outfit is actually rather practical and flexible, with clothes just loose enough to move easily and comfortable without being too baggy.

Player Knowledge
A trio of dangerous mages have entered Seattle, their goals shrouded in danger and mystery. They call themselves “The Cabal” and knowledge of their existence is a closely held secret. Their objective is to summon the attention of The Mórrígan. A powerful Free Spirit, rumored to hold some manner of influence over other spirits of the land. If they can bring it to Seattle, they will try and control it, either through Faustian bargains or force. Nobody knows yet what they will do if they succeed.

The Cabal
These Cabal members met through their own time in the Black Lodge. Though they are not officially working for the Lodge at this time, pursuing their personal goals instead. However that doesn’t mean their reputation, if discovered, would not raise many red flags. Each of the members is a talented and skilled Awakened in their own right, and together they stand as a force which individuals in Seattle would wish to cross. Something to be made clear, while the Cabal members may be working towards the same goal, this doesn’t mean they want to share in their victory. None of them will openly oppose each other,

Nietzsche
The self-declared leader of this Cabal is a man named Nietzsche. His twisted ideals view Awakened as the next form of evolution, and demand that all lesser beings bow to their newly realized masters. While his opinion of himself may seem inflated, he is certainly nobody to look down upon. He firmly believes in the power of presentation, and as such tends towards more grandiose behaviours.

Rumor
The unknown element of the Cabal is Rumor. Even among the other members, he does not reveal anything about his identity. As his name suggests, he keeps secrets very well and his motivations are rarely anything but enigmatic. He tends to work mostly as a peacemaker between the other two Cabal members, and often offers support to them. Rumor’s jobs rarely require violence, and almost always demand no killing. It’s uncertain what his personal goals are.

Kwen
The other weight on the scales of the Cabal, to balance against Nietzsche, is Kwen. To call him a mad genius wouldn’t be giving him enough credit. Kwen’s goals rarely seem consistent from one day to the next, and it feels like it would be fair to say that his real passion is just inflicting chaos upon the world. Despite this, he is just as capable and conniving as the other members of the Cabal. Kwen’s personal end goals are something that are truly unknown, arguably even by him. Despite his constant back and forth and disagreements with Nietzsche, Kwen appears to be fully committed to the Cabal’s plans and executing them. He just often finds alternative ways to do it. His runs will often have strange completion criteria, or involve unusual goals.

The Order of St. Sylvester
A religious group of reasonable influence, they have sent a force to quietly address the Cabal. They do not know the exact goals of the Cabal, or its members, but they believe that they represent enough of a threat that they should be watched. The leader of this force is Father Joseph Boemhe, a mundane Elf and man with his own reputation. He is known even among the shadows as someone of strong moral fiber and who does not lie. His own checkered past has gained him much respect from many, despite his insistence on acting as an ordained member of the Order. While The Order are in the city to oppose the Cabal, they are doing so as quietly as possible. For whatever reason, the Cabal is maintaining supreme secrecy and The Order are concerned that if they shine a public light on them it will cause them to escalate into more drastic measures. As such, a cold war of sorts is being waged on the two fronts.

Character Knowledge
Something has the shadows abuzz, as rumors flit around about increasing prices on magical information and magical artifacts. Someone has a lot of interest in them, and nobody knows who. But as it so often is in the shadows, few care, as long as they can pony up enough jing for it. Rumors of the Black Lodge float around, but nobody gives any credence to them these days, just another conspiracy nut screaming into the ever hungry maw that is the Sixth World. Next thing you know, they’ll be claiming that the Matrix causes HMHHV. Of more pressing concern are the much more substantiated claims that Shadow Spirits seem to be showing up, more and more, in dark corners of the city. Apparently they’ve become very aggressive in their sales tactics, offering discounted deals to many of the more downtrodden members of Seattle. An Ork whose family was killed walked up to a pair of KE officers and punched clean through each of their chests, instantly killing them. A songwriter whose work was stolen performed a private concert for the executives of the record label that ripped him off, and somehow they all died in their sleep. That and a dozen other insane tales have finally reached critical mass, and the shadows of Seattle are taking them somewhat more seriously. Some people are claiming that these spirits are giving Mundanes magical powers, which would sound absurd, if it wasn’t such a bone chilling concept. The idea of the battered masses having access to a weapon which can’t be seen until it's too late is not something that sits well with those that hold power. As such, security of many private establishments has started to increase. Crimson Kabuto, though they have shown many unfortunate failures in places, have gathered new contracts from the now fearful elite of Seattle. They have begun refitting much of their equipment to better handle magical targets, and started aggressively recruiting anyone with a drop of Awakened talent.