Session Recap | Cape Point 2030

I don't usually do session recaps, but a few people have asked me about what's going on in my campaign. With the slow agonising death of G+, I thought I'd give it a try here at the Archive.

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Friday night's trip to 2030s Cape Town was all about getting my GMing ducks in a row.

The PCs:
Nathan Zero, fixer and CEO of start-up Charon Global (Shaun)
Vijay Ravinder Hazari, hacker and prowler (James)
Hydraulic Dave, morbidly obese techie/drone wrangler (Craig)
Anna Zone, psychotic teenage clone solo (Graham)
Natasha Black, gender-morphing solo/assassin (John)

After last week's assassination of Network 54 employee, Keira Aspinall, in the Horizonville MPZ, the players met with their client's PA, Innocent Jones, a statuesque African-American woman with Paris runway looks, their payment smoothly transferred through Charon's accounts.

Nathan later met a number of fixers at The Athenaeum club, to purchase several proxy IDs for Natasha, ordered some mil-spec hardware for the solos, and got Vijay an in with an online software dealer. Also added some new connections to his growing roster. Many of these fixers have noticed an increase in arms dealing and mercenary contracting, implying something is going down in the city. Everyone's on edge.

Dave finally had some time to work on some programs for his drone stable, and to work on the DRM-cracked schematics for his 3D-printed, counterfeit Minami 10s (to be printed in toy gun green). Fixers are approached to sell them in to the townships when they're ready.

Natasha was summoned to the run down Devil's Peak microcology projects to see the mysterious Nana Dharma, who appears to be a petite Tibetan geriatric in layers of mismatched clothes, holding court amongst the banks of servers, base units, monitors and cables that fill her cramped, hot apartment. Dharma seems to know things about Natasha even Natasha doesn't know. She looks to be some sort of information broker and an accomplished hacker. The crone hints at a coming war and suggests Natasha choose a side. Natasha is not convinced. Members of the Devil's Peak Daddies gang seem to loyally protect the aged hacker.

The following day Vijay meets up with hacktivist PhreakWorm at the outlandish Negativland cosplay VR forum, presenting as a hazy blur. PhreakWorm is tricked out as a sexy medusa, surrounded by a harem of gimp guards in glossy latex. Vijay finds this show a little uncomfortable. Despite this, he makes a deal with Phreak to store some data in one of their cloud servers, to be released in the event his biomonitor flatlines for over 24 hours. This data could be a problem for the other PCs, if it gets out. PhreakWorm humours Vijay and takes a few grand for holding this info. They now have a link to Vijay's biomonitor too.

Mysterious agent, William Blake, approaches Natasha, Anna and Vijay within the space of a few hours. Blake was active back when they were in London, but they were unsure of his affiliation. Turns out he's working for some sort of AI collective, which troubles the group. He's trying to get them onside. None of the players trust him, especially after talks about various forms of leverage.

The team then gather in the main restaurant at The Radisson Hotel to discuss plans. They employ the privacy screens available there (white noise generators and signal blockers). They agree that Blake may be a problem going forward, and that perhaps Dharma could find out more about him. Anna just wants to execute him and damn the consequences. They desperately try to talk her out of it (for now). She just shrugs.

Later, Nathan and Anna meet one of the fixer's facemen, Koshka Nine, at a bar called Troika. She has a client in need of a team to recover some stolen property. If the team agree to meet the client for a more detailed brief, she wants a 20% cut of the negotiated fee. Nathan manages to get her down to 15%. She agrees to set up the meeting. Some of the clientele of the bar seem to recognise Anna, but she's not sure why.

The meet is arranged for later that evening. Nathan needs to be at a private Sea Point beach at 9pm. The fixer decides to take Natasha with him, just in case. She dresses alluringly, and alters her hair into a shocking pink bob. The beach is well guarded, with perimeter drones and solos in black jackets and beanie hats with A-80s on show. A sleek speedboat lies at anchor off a short jetty.

The speedboat takes Nathan and Natasha out, about half a mile west and into the pitch dark. Ahead they can see lights, and as they close, they see a 107m yacht, grey and white polymer hull and black sails, with more armed men on deck. The yacht is named Fate Amenable To Change.

Climbing aboard, they are escorted below decks into an opulent parlour decorated in a decadent tsarist chic. There's a scent of cigars and perfume, and Dark Side of the Moon plays in the background. Here they meet the aristocratic Shamir Globov, head of the kombinat in the Hub, his favourite mistress, the eccentric Alena Morozov, and a weaselly-looking flesh-pedlar called Porphyry. Globov offers Nathan and Natasha a 60 year old cognac. Alena asks after Koshka, but calls her Katarina. She asks Nathan to get the girl to call her. Then it's down to business.

One of Porphyry's storage areas on Atlantia was robbed three nights ago. Globov describes the merchandise as 'illegal, but viable, live collateral', contained in a number of exo-wombs. He suspects the involvement of the Rose cartel and the Yakuza, but then he thinks everything is masterminded by the Yakuza. He's had a tip-off that a fixer called Mamading knows who's involved and he suggest the PCs start with him. Nathan agrees a fee of 20k, with a promise of a bonus if they can uncover any possible leak in Globov's organisation.

Back on the mainland they discover Porphyry knows Anna (he smuggled her and her twin out of a Haruna lab in Romania and into London). Natasha warns Anna that he's in the city. Anna vows to kill him when this is over.

Nathan tasks his network with searching for any information on the fixer Mamading, as well as possible locations or businesses which the Rose cartel might use to stash contraband. He then visits Dharma and discovers that Mamading is often seen at Marimba's bar in Bakoven; he's well liked and well protected there. She also tells him that Mamading has recently been in contact with both the Rose and Njombo cartels. Nathan now owes Dharma some sort of favour, to be specified later. He then goes home to Bantry Bay and gets drunk.

Vijay agrees to meet Blake at the House of Blue Lights, where they can talk securely. He commits to siding with Blake in his hunt for the group known as the Aleph, and promises to help with disinformation to the authorities, such as the PSA, the Intelligence Directorate and Protocol. Uneasy, he then heads home to his grotty little apartment in Oranjezicht, in the shadow of the geodesic.