Sabotage, Subterfuge, and Syncretism
| Sabotage, Subterfuge, and Syncretism | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Factions Involved | |||||||||
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ShadowHaven Templars | Major Corp | ||||||||
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Six of Hearts Europa Geodesic Oberon |
Character1 Character2 | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| none | |||||||||
Summary
Runners are asked by the Templars to investigate happenings in Basque country. After some investigation, they discover themselves to be at the precipice of a very deep rabbit hole.
Background
The Basque Catholic Church split off from the Vatican way back when Euskal Herria declared independence from Spain.
While tensions between the Basque Church and Catholic Church have been high in the past, hard feelings have cooled over the decades as the Vatican has become more progressive and pro-Awakened.
Euskal Herria has hosted ecumenical (interfaith) conferences for decades. They're generally as exciting as trade conferences, and until this year attract little notice from non-religious organizations.
Through back-channels, the Roman Catholic and Basque Catholic churches have recently begun discussing the possibility of merging again. By the start of the conference nothing had been definitively planned out, but a clandestine meeting between members of each faith discussing the merger was set up, using the ecumenical conference as both a location and as a smokescreen for their intentions.
Several days before the run, a trio of events happened: First, Bishop Manganiello (one of the Vatican delegates in town to discuss the merger) disappeared, the convention center was bombed, and every conference attendee involved in the secret meeting began to recieve anonymous death threats on their comms. These events seemed too focused to be coincidence, and drew the attention of the Templars.
From there, Father Uriel assembled a team of out-of-country runners, fearing that runners from the area might be entangled in this religious issue or in the machinations of whichever regional power was behind it all.
The Meet
The team was called together to meet at a rented office space. He outlined the situation to the runners, being fairly open about his involvement in the Catholic Church but being coy about being a Templar. He asked that the runners go to Euskal Herria, find the person/group responsible for the happenings, figure out what happened to Bishop Manganiello, and deal with said responsible group. Initially Father Uriel meant unconditionally killing them, but that was negotiated to "phone in and ask Father Uriel if killing was necessary once you've found them." No timeline was given, but urgency was requested in addition to discretion and conscience.
As part of the cost of the job he offered to set up an expense account for the runners (which would cover burner fake SINs, paying a smuggler for transportation, hotel fees, food, rental cars, the cost of a babysitter, and a few other things too minor to mention) in addition to the actual job payment.
The Plan
The runners planned to head to Gasteiz in Euskal Herria (where the incidents had occurred), investigate some loose threads, and improvise from there. Said loose threads were: the bomb site, the conference members involved in the secret meetings, the death threats, and the lack of an actionable police response to any of these things.
A smuggler, [Cascade], was hired for the job after the J conferred with her to be assured of her discretion.
Oberon pulled some Basque music from the massive stash of pirated tunes he earned in a past run and started listening on the way there, using his adept powers to get a grounding in the language. Six of Hearts did some learning Basque in a more conventional way, managing to get a solid grounding in the language by the time the team arrived by studying.
The Run
Aftermath
Rewards
- 2 CDP (free)
- 30k nuyen (15 RVP)
- 5k nuyen OR 10k nuyen in weapons, ammo, armor and spy gear avail <19 (2.5 RVP)
- 15 more CDP, likely to spend on languages related to the run (7.5 RVP)
- 15 karma (15 RVP)
- 8k nuyen in Krime products avail <19, from picking up some souvenirs from the local industry OR 4 CDP (2 RVP)
For Six of Hearts:
- Treat the run as an ascension
+1 chip on Father Uriel
- May take "Picante" the Spanish Ancients demolitions expert as a contact for a discount, as per IKAG rules
For Europa:
- Father Uriel turned up another lead on Yamatetsu's dealings for you
For Geodesic:
- May buy Trust Data Not Lore at chargen price
- ...I guess Father Uriel will compensate you for the ammo you used?
For Oberon:
- You've drawn the attention (but not the ire) of the Basque Black Lodge of Mordred. They consider you to be a useful pawn, and have let you leave the country unscathed.
Game Quotes
Player After Action Reports (AARs)
Geodesic - "Hm. It's hard to know. How to feel about this one. Euskal Herria is interesting. It was nice taking a trip. Somewhere sunny. A less... dysfunctional state of society. But... we totally. Left a job half-finished. We got paid for the whole job. And the Johnson is. Satisfied. Is the wrong word. Accepting. But it's like biting into an apple. And hitting bedrock. Or clay. Oberon was acting strange about things. Maybe I can probe him. Later. For now. I'm going to spend time. With Oliver. And figure out. What to do with these Krime Bosses. Where to store them, even. Frag. Why did I take all these."