Out of Character Interlude - Optional Reading

Doing some house-cleaning during Stone's week off. This is just me thinking, doing character-work and rolling dice. The in-character interlude will drop next week.

Hello, choom.

As Lotte “suggested”, Mr. Stoneheart will take one week “off” before assuming his new position as Head of Counterintell for Night Corp. There are, however, a myriad of things that we must resolve as he “rests” (as if Stone were actually capable of resting). This will be an OOC interlude, which’ll be accompanied by an IC interlude posted shortly after, in the form of Stone’s therapy session with Johan.

Here’s our list of “things to resolve”:

• Stone

  • Cyberware

  • New team member

  • Spend IP

  • Weekly pay

  • Therapy

  • Decide how Stone’ll handle the whole “marriage” situation.

  • Perhaps a schedule?

• Kelly Peterson

  • Flesh her out as an NPC. As it is, I feel like she’s a bit two dimensional.

• Rose Chill

  • Stone’ll do some superficial digging on “Thorn” during his days off.

  • Otherwise, she sustained heavy injury and will remain unconscious in the hospital for the rest of the week.

• Haruka

  • Her agent. Stone has access to her agent, and I’ll give him one try per day to find more things. I think this is a great plot device.

  • Yakuza - are they feeling disrespected? Stone needs to deal with this.

• Ace of Hearts

  • What does Jenkins finds out? Is her condition reversible?

  • What will Stone do with her?

  • Did she have a pimp or Haruka mantained her?

• The unnamed cop

  • Does she makes contact during this week?

---

Mr. Jeremiah Stoneheart

Current euro-dollars available: 1500 (he gave 200 to Pupu as a bonus)

Fixed expenses: 600 ebs payed every month (Good lifestyle Prepak)

Housing: Corporate Conapt. Cerberus Towers, The Glen.

Roles: Exec 5 / Fixer 3

Empathy/Humanity: 5(7)/59

Current cyberware:

• Biomonitor

• Cyberaudio suite

  • Internal Agent

• Toxin Binders (+2 Resist Drugs)

Cyberware

As part of his promotion, Stone will be aforded with some free cyberware. This cyberware obviously belong to Night Corp, which means that in case he’s terminated, the cyberware will be deactivated and removed.

• Cybereye 1 (-2d6 hum)

  • Chiron: projects a tiny subscreen into user’s normal field of vision for messages, video, etc. from a user’s other cyberware or eletronics. (-1d6/2 hum, round up)

  • Image Enhance: +2 to perception, lip reading, conceal/reveal object skills checks that rely on sight. Must be installed in the two eyes. (-1d6)

• Cybereye 2 (-2d6 hum)

  • Image Enhance: +2 to perception, lip reading, conceal/reveal object skills checks that rely on sight. Must be installed in the two eyes. (-1d6)

  • Micro-Video: Camera in eye records video and audio to his linked agent. Occupies two slots. (-1d6/2)

• Added to his Cyberaudio Suite:

  • Voice Stress Analyzer: +2 to Human Perception and Interrogation skills (-1d6)

  • Bug Detector: beeps when user is within 2m of a tap, bug, or other listening devices. (-1d6/2)

Let’s roll. In total, we’ll be rolling six and a half d6’s. Normally, a techie would only be able to use their ability to reduce humanity loss is a piece of cyberware would cause a person to lost 2d6 or more. However, since Stone’s installing in bulk and this is premium corporate shit, I’ll remove 1d6 and a half from the total cost. This means we’ll pay 4d6 humanity in total for this package.

• 4d6: 3, 4, 1, 4 — Total Humanity loss: -12. Current: 47 (Emp 4/7)

New Team Member

As Mr. Stone said during his last journal entry, he intends for his new team member to be both a lawyer and personal assistant. That is not one of the options available through RAW, but it makes sense, so we’ll go with it - or, in other words, “I’m the DM and the DM has just allowed it”.

Also per RAW, an exec team members are hired through HR. However, Mr. Stone’s going to try and see if his boss, Lotte, authorizes him to choose the candidate himself, given that his position as Head of Counterintell warrants some level of paranoia.

• Is Stone allowed to choose his new team member instead of going through HR? Certain. 51. Yes.

Awesome. Now let’s search for the perfect candidate.

Stone wants someone that is:

• Capable, beautiful, female and loyal.

His rationale for these traits will be explored in character during his therapy session. For now, let’s see if Pupu, the only person Mr. Stone actually trusts, knows someone that fits the bill.

• Does Pupu knows someone that fits those parameters? 50/50. 70. Yes!

Look at that! The dice are smiling at us.

• What is this person’s relationship with Pupu? 3. Acquaintance. That’s boring. Let’s try again.

• What is this person’s relationship with Pupu? 11. Best friend.

Now that’s interesting. It invites a deep dive into Pupu’s background at some point, creates interpersonal texture and also puts one very important question into the back of Stone’s mind: if there’s a crack in the team, will Pupu be loyal to me or to her friend?

BUT, a capable individual that fits his bill is hard to find, so he’ll accept.

1. Name: 42 - Iris

2. Handle: 1 - Any animal - Viper (first thing that came to mind)

3. Ethnicity: 4 - European (South/Mediterranean). Let’s make her Spanish. Iris “Viper” Cortés.

4. Body type: 2 - Wiry

5. Age: 3 - 30-40. Let’s go with 40. Let’s go with 30. Maybe even 29. Pupu’s about 25~26, being BFFs with a 40yo doesn’t fit.

6. What are you like? 3 - Arrogant, proud, aloof. INTERESTING. This is her behavior toward “outsiders”.

7. Clothing Style: High Fashion

8. Hairstyle: 8 - Neat and short / Haircolor: 10 - Neon. Let’s go with shock-green, just to be fun.

9. Affectation: 9 - Fingerless gloves. Seems out of place, but perhaps there’s a story there.

10. Role: 8 - Rockerboy. INTERESTING²./ Role Level: 1d6 - 4.

    1. I don’t think she’s a musician, though. I’ve fed the “Rockerboy” role ability to an AI and asked for a 1d20 random table on “what could a rockerboy be”. Rolling… 20. I got “Unofficial Spokesperson”, the one who simply has enough presence to shape narratives and is magnetic enough pull others in.

    2. I really like that. It’s very interesting, very nitty-gritty edgerunner, very lawyer, and very someone who’d be friends with Pupu.

(everything bellow here was rolled while she was still 40yr and just “famous lawyer”, but I’ll adapt it to the current concept, which I think is much much better and fitting.)

The problem we have with this NPC is this: if she’s a capable lawyer, arrogant and proud in her usual behavior, very charismatic (rockerboy), why would she accept to work as a personal assistant for an exec? Let’s see what the dice tell us:

• Verb + Adjective + Noun: 16, 91, 60 — Chill surviving meatspace.

This tells me this is about survival, and “chill” means she’s waiting. I think Viper has some heat on her in another town and this job came in the perfect time for her to “start again”, which we’ll in turn help her to remain loyal, since she’s thankful for the opportunity.

• Am I correct? 50/50. 92. An extreme yes. Awesome.

Now let’s find her a picture.

Spend IP

Mr. Stone currently has 300 IP points. The “problem” we currently have, however, is that his character sheet does not reflect his background properly - mainly because I was too lazy to create his character sheet and went with one of the templates.

With that in mind, our efforts with IP, before thinking “advancement”, will be addressing the disparity between his life story and his sheet.

• Drive Land Vehile: 0 to 3 — 120IP

• Science (Psychology): 0 to 4 — 0IP, because per RAW it’s a completely useless skill and I’m not paying IP for it.

• Language (Russian): 0 to 2 — 0IP, I’m giving this as a bonus.

• Library Search: 0 to 2 - 60IP

• Streetwise: 0 to 2 - 60IP — Stone grew up in the streets, but it’s been so long and he got a bit rusty.

• Resist Drugs/Torture - 0 to 2 - 60IP

New IP total: 00 IP.

Background skills still missing:

• Bribery, but with his COOL and PT, his base for it is 10, which is pretty decent.

• Human Perception, which he has at a 5, but it’s low for how he normally operates.

SKILL 1-20, 2-4O, 3-60, 4-80, 5-100.

Weekly Pay

Now, per RAW, Stone would have no weekly pay. This is because most campaign follow Edgerunners who are getting paid by mission, and are not actually employed.

Considering Stone’s new position and the fact that he’s working two jobs (Head of Counterintell & guiding the Project’s Security unit), I’m going to be generous and give him a 1000 euro-bucks per week.

I did some thinking and that amount of money + mission specific bonuses feels fair and not enough to disrup the game, since we’re so slow paced that it took us nearly one month to play two days of Stone’s life.

Therapy

Stone has therapy every week. It’s part of the corporate lifestyle. He’s also mindfullness and vitamins, despite being a drug addict.

It would not be fair to give him a full +1d6 to humanity every week, since the book gives us +1d6 humanity for a week of intensive therapy where you do nothing else.

Therefore, I’m rulling that at each session of therapy that Stone attends, he’ll regain 1d4-1 Humanity Points, with a minimum of 0.

Decide how Stone’ll handle the whole “marriage” situation.

This is a hard one.

Stone’s a control freak, which means he hates the fact that Kelly trapped him into marriage, and hates it even more because he has a romantic streak and really wanted to meet a “nice girl”. The idea of marrying an over-the-top socialite bimbo feels off to him, to the point that I think he feels a bit ashamed to be seen in public with her. I know, it’s a dick move, but that’s what I think the character feels.

However, he is honorable. He’s a liar, a manipulator, a shark, perhaps on his way to be a psychopath at some point, but he is honorable and he gave her his word, which means he won’t back down from it, and won’t look for a loophole, specially after Lotte said she thinks it’s a smart move.

He will, however, try to regain control. That means he’ll:

• Draft pre-nups so he’s in control of the marriage;

• Try to change Kelly’s behavior so it’s more in line with what he considers acceptable. He’ll frame it as helping her achieve what she wants, that is to be seen as more than eye-candy - which, to be fair, is not completely wrong.

• This will be handled in game, with a series of persuasion rolls.

Another thing that I think is important to keep in mind is that Stone is genuinely fond of Kelly, and Kelly is genuinely fond of him. They’re not romantically in love, but they’ve been flirting for a while and he genuinely cares about her, although he does so in his own way.

I think Kelly might actually end up winning him over with her effectiveness and lovebombing, although this will depend on what happens when we start fleshing out her character more.

Perhaps a schedule?

Here’s the thing: Mr. Stone is not a free-running edgerunner who gets to simply do what he pleases. He has a job. Two jobs, actually, now that he got promoted and runs both Counterintell and Project’s Security. More than a job, he also has a lifestyle, social circles, relationships to mantain, etc. On the other hand, I’m not interested in roleplaying “bureaucrat simulator”.

This means that I’ll craft a very general weekly schedule for Mr. Stone. Most of these things won’t very important in play, but there will always be a chance for a random event, and the simple fact that they exist will add texture to our world.

• Monday

  • Date Night with Kelly.

• Tuesday

  • Coworker Social. Drinks/dinner with his direct reports and key operators. Maintain loyalty, resentments surface, etc.

• Wednesday

  • Meeting with one external power node. People from other departments, city politics, other companies, etc.

• Thursday

  • Date night with Kelly. Let’s not get her mad.

• Friday

  • Therapy.

  • Payday.

• Saturday

  • High Society Social. Gala, fundraiser, private dinner, executive salon, etc.

Sunday

• Kept free.

Kelly Peterson

Kelly appeared as a randomly-generated NPC in one of the first sessions, but made her way into a powerful player in Jeremiah’s life, both as an asset and as a rival, since she actually manipulated him into a marital alliance.

Despite that, her plastic-bubblegum-bimbo persona makes her into a bit of a cartoon character, very two dimensional. Her over-the-top style out-shines her personality, which’s interesting, because it shows us why one of her goals is precisely to be perceived as more than eye-candy bimbo. Let’s help her with that.

Flesh her out as an NPC. As it is, I feel like she’s a bit two dimensional.

So, what do we know about Kelly Peterson so far? Let’s recall what we’ve rolled about her so far.

• Name: Kelly “KellyKaos” Peterson

• Age: 31, but appears younger.

• Job: HR Representative to the Intelligence & Security Division.

• True calling: Social Media Influencer (deals with high-society gossip, trend-setting, etc)

• Roles: Exec 2 / Media 4

• Outward Personality: Silly and fluff headed (we went with valley-accent classic bubbly, love-bombing, superficial plastic bimbo). True personality: we’ve established that she’s a dangerous socialite, and I like to think she has a good heart beneath all that pink.

• Hair: Striped pink and blonde / Affectation: septum piercing.

• Values most: Friendship (which is very interesting. Perhaps she values her friends, or she values a network of contacts and influence? Or both?)

• Life goal: Get rid of a bad reputation (being superficial eye candy).

• Values: We discovered via roleplay that she wants the power of being married to a predator. She wants to be a corporate/high society “bloody warrior queen”, standing beside the “predator she turned into the apex”. This tells us that she values power and ruthlessness. In my headcannon, she also wants to be a matriarch.

So what I’ll do is enlist the AI for help. I’ll ask for ten questions regarding Kelly Peterson, with varied levels of depth, that I’ll have to answer using what we know and/or dice rolls, so we get a better feel for who she is.

To answer these questions, I’ll follow proper solo-rp procedure: go with the first thing that comes to your mind.

1. What does Kelly do to unwind after a particularly exhausting day of maintaining her social media empire and HR duties? Does she have genuine comfort habits, or is “relaxation” just another performance?

• I think she smokes weed. Is that it? 50/50. 100. Holy shit, a max “eyes”. She’s a total pot-head. Kelly loves to decompress smoking synthetic weed, watching stupid movies and checking social media.

2. What’s one thing Kelly splurges on that has nothing to do with her image or social media presence? What does she want for herself when no one’s watching or caring?

• Let’s roll on the “What’s their poison” table - 9: Pain/Sexual violence.

  • Well, that’s… awkward. However, it does explain why she’s so into the idea of Jeremiah as a predator. I feel like I’m looking into a part of her life she’d not want me to see, but, well, the dice are the dice.

3. What’s Kelly’s relationship with her family like? Does she talk to them? Avoid them? Why? Where did the bubbly bimbo come from, and what does her family think of who she’s become?

• Does Kelly comes from money? Likely. 64, Yes.

• Her father is… (Corporate/Upscale Table): Corporate Spy.

  • Is he still alive? 50/50. 54, yes with complication: he’s alive, but very old and frail, suffering from alzheimer.

• Her mother is… (Corporate/Upscale Table): Corporate Dependent (Spouse/Child)

  • Is she still alive? 50/50. 30, no.

• Did she learn her bimboesque ways and mean-girl behavior from her mother? Likely. 81, Yes.

• Does she have siblings? 50/50. 15, No.

• She lives on a paycheck? 50/50. 68, Yes. This means that whatever amount of money her dad left, it’s over.

4. What’s something Kelly is genuinely bad at, knows she’s bad at, and gets frustrated about? Not everything can be fixed with charisma and connections.

• That’s a hard one. I think she might be bad at forming real relationships. She hates being alone, and that’s why she values friendship so much, because they’re so hard to find. I won’t even roll this, because I think it fits perfectly.

5. What does Kelly do when she’s genuinely hurt or upset that no one else sees? When the mask can’t stay on, what happens?

• She goes on scorched earth mode. Total and absolute social destruction. Is that it? Likely. 6. Extreme no. Huh.

• Let’s go in the other direction. She ugly cries, complete and total mental/emotional breakdown? Likely. 62, Yes.

6. What’s one thing Kelly believes about the world that most people would find naive or childish? Despite the manipulation and social warfare, what innocent belief does she still hold onto?

• This one’s easy. It puts us back into the “friendship” angle. She really believes in friendship. She thinks a good friend, a real one, is the most valuable thing you can have in your life.

7. What’s the meanest thing Kelly has ever done, and does she regret it? Where’s the line between “dangerous socialite” and “actually cruel”?

• I was reading through Augmented Reality’s table to see if I could find something to roll on for this, and I had a idea: what if Kelly always wanted to be a journalist, but because of her silly ways she couldn’t find a way to start… But she got a job offer to craft a fake news about a corpo product, she did it, and many people died because of it? Likely. 90. Yes.

• That’s it. And that’s why she doesn’t have trust-fund money - she spent it all on lawyers to cover it up so her mistake wouldn’t haunt her forever.

• And that’s also why she became a lifestyle commentary and social media influencer - she gave up journalism for good after that.

8. Why does Kelly REALLY want to get rid of the “superficial eye candy” reputation - is it about respect, power, being seen, being loved, or something else entirely? What’s the wound underneath the goal?

• I think it’s all of the above, but it also has to do with her mother. Kelly learned her ways from her mother, and she resents her a bit, because her mother was just superficial eye candy to the core. She wants to prove to herself that she’s more than that. Likely. 64. Yes.

9. When did Kelly realize she was actually good at manipulating social dynamics, and how did she feel about that discovery? Was it exciting? Scary? Shameful? Empowering?

• Her whole life. Pre-school, probably. It was empowering.

10. What’s Kelly’s biggest fear about her marriage to Jeremiah? Not the power-couple fantasy - what keeps her up at night about this alliance.

• I actually had the AI generate a d100 table of fears to answer this one. Let’s roll and see.

  • Kelly Peterson’s Table of Potential Fears: 57 - That she's repeating her mother's mistakes - just with better PR

  • It fits. Let’s go with that.

Rose “Chill” Wells.

Next item on the list, Rose Wells. We know almost nothing about this girl, which is by design - I want to find things out with Jeremiah, after all. One of these things is the identity of “Thorn”, her handler. Jeremiah still doesn’t have the access he will have as Head of Counterintel, which means this will be a very superficial digging, but he’ll make a few calls

Stone does some superficial digging on “Thorn” during his days off.

Rolling Bureacracy (11) + 1d10 vs DV20, as Mr. Stone tries to navigate some bureacracy to see if he can find a trail on Thorn without having counterintel access: 17.

• He finds that the person actually exists, it’s a handle that has some paper trail, but things are mostly out of reach. He’ll have to be patient.

Haruka Tanagi

Her Agent

Two sessions ago, Mr. Stone acquired biometric access to Haruka Tanagi’s personal agent. Last session, he tried to dig a bit into it - with absolutely no success.

Here’s how I ruled it:

This will be a library use roll. Since I don’t know what’s there, this won’t have a proper DV - Stone’s just seeing what he finds.

• 0-15 roll: nothing much. Contacts, no chat history, maybe some spicy pics.

• 17-21 roll: more proof of Haruka scheemes.

• 21+: a thousand eurobucks for each number above 20.

  • Stone rolls Library (7) + 1d10 = 10. Meh.

    • Ok, he basically wasted 1h of his life for a couple of nudes. More fun than telivision, though.

Stone has seven days off. A full week, as Lotte suggested. I’ll allow him one roll per day. If he implodes, he can’t roll anymore and the only way to access the agent’s contents will be through a netrunner or a techie. If he doesn’t score one single roll above 20 during the week, the same applies - but now mostly because he gets bored.

With the IP expenditure, his “Library Use” skill is sitting at 9.

• Roll 1: 10! 10! 29.

Well, holy shit. Mr. Stoneheart has just unlocked:

1. Access to more of Haruka’s schemes. Those will certainly be useful during his first days as Head of Counterintel, the position she once occupied. I’ll skip on deciding on any information for now and actually save this as a plot device for later.

2. 9.000 eurobucks from her private and secret accounts, which he promptly transfers to his own secure account.

Will there be a public memorial for Haruka that he’s expected to participate?

Let’s just roll and get the answer: 50/50. 88. Yes.

There will be a high-society corporate event, a memorial for Haruka Tanagi, and Stone is expected to attend. He’ll go with Kelly. It will be fun (except it won’t).

The Yakuza’s Kanzaki Family

Next order of business is the Kanzaki Family from the Yakuza.

Stone’s actions caused them some trouble - Pupu killed 8 of them in her quest for the Ace of Hearts in Rancho Coronado, he got Haruka to commit suicide…

These actions can be perceived in two ways by the Yakuza: disrespect which warrants reparations or just business as usual.

Stone will give a call to his friends in the Consortium and ask if they heard anything, to test the waters.

• Stone rolls Streetwise (12) vs DV15. 20. Stone manages to get word on the Yakuza after a few calls.

  • Are the Yakuza feeling disrespected? 50/50. 6. Extreme no. Business as usual, then. Good.

Ace of Hearts

This is another one of those problems that just came up during play but demands an answer. The idea of this character - the prostitute with neural cutouts that records braindances - is utterly sick and cyberpunk, which is awesome, but it also creates a lot of questions regarding the character’s that surround her and, also, poses questions to Mr. Stone.

What does Jenkins finds out?

Stone managed to get Jenkins, a technician in his team, to look into the Ace of Hearts’s condition, which also provided her with a place to stay for the next 24hs as Jenkins works his magic.

• What does Jenkins finds out? Is her condition reversible? Unlikely, given that it is described as “neural cutouts”, and not as doll-software or something. 27. No. Her condition as a doll-like creature is permanent.

• Did Stone find information about the Ace on Haruka’s personal files? Likely. 96, extreme yes.

  • All right. Here’s what makes sense to me: Haruka acquired Ace at some point. Actually bought her in the blackmarket. She’s a biological human being, but her neural cutouts turned her into a living flesh doll. Although she’s biologically alive, she’s mentally dead and vacant. Haruka kept her “stored” in Rancho Coronado.

What will Stone do with her?

Here’s the million dollar question, after all. Mr. Stone’s faced with what is, to him, an impossible choice.

• If he delivers Ace to the authorities, she’s just going to be euthanized. That would be cowardly - if she’s going to die, he is the done that needs to do the killing.

• If he kills Ace, he’s commiting cold-blooded murder. It’s an execution.

To Stone, the Ace is a human being, despite the tragedy of her situation. Of course, Lotte, his mentor, doesn’t agree with him - she even suggested that Stone could “keep her as a souvenir”.

There are no good choices here, but what my gut tells me is that Stone, despite not being a cold-blooded corpo murder machine, wants to be one, and he is currently addicted to Prime Time, which reduces his humanity during use and supresses his emotions.

I think he’ll keep the Ace as a souvenir of how he took down Haruka and, most of all, as an intimidation tactic - keep her seated in his new office’s sofa, the same sofa where he blackmailed Haruka, as a reminder to anyone that enters to deal with him that they are dealing with someone that is capable of terrible things….

And also as a way for him to try and convince himself that Lotte is right - as he tries to convince himself that she always is - and that the Ace is not a real person anymore.

The Unamed Cop

Finally, there’s the unamed cop to whom Jeremiah gave his card at the Olympus. She was looking for someone - a “compromised asset”, and he offered to help in case she needed. She took the card, but…

• Did she get in contact with him? 50/50. 97. Extreme yes. She certainly did.

• Is the situation something he could help with quickly? 50/50. 89. Yes.

No need to go into much detail, then. She was looking for someone, and Mr. Stone was able to find out where that person was with a few phone calls. He now has a cop owing him a favor.

• Instead of crafting an NPC, let’s roll on the “Lawmen” table from Single Player’s Mode: 5 - Judy “Pitbull” Warren — “New cop. Likes hurting people".”

From the Wiki: “Officer Judy Warren joined the Night City Police Department to beat people who wouldn’t do what she told them to do, giving her several write-ups for excessive force already. A muscle-minded thug with a badge, her favorite assignment is, naturally, riot duty. She has suspected links to the Red Chrome Legion who probably funded her cyberware installations.”

Well.. Better to have her on our side than against us, I suppose.