SPRAWLVEMBER 2026. A month of SG:U and cyberpunk TTRPG posts. Prompts are here.
This is a guest post, courtesy of the cyberpunk creative machine that is Gregorius 21778. Check out his excellent Sprawlvember entries here: https://gregorius21778.wordpress.com/tag/sprawlvember
And there are many, many more fantastic Sprawl Goons: Upgraded and other cyberpunk offerings on their blog - definitely go take a look!
Day 04 // Prompt: Lost
This one is for Sprawl Goons: Upgraded.
Trace Lost in the Halogen Heights
Sprawl Goons: Upgraded mission skeleton, built from Looks & Details for Wanted Cyberpunks (LD_Wanted /LD_Cy_Bounty_Target style).
What to one man is a person is to somebody else nothing more than a target. A target with a prize tag on it. Prizes are hunted for. To hunt, you follow traces. And traces sometimes get lost.
Carice Marin is to some a skilled nodejacker. To one of the corporations, she is a data thief that got away with something she should not have deleted afterwards. And to somebody else, she is a target somebody has put a prize on, one with a trace that ends in the Halogen Heights.
She was hired for a job, she made the job, she got the data and deleted it after she copied. All.
Now, she got a big piece of Clavel Industries data that will be the base of a new, improved self-learning sense-to-cognition interface for the next generation of cybrids. The plan that a partner of hers had with this: sell it back to Clavel Industries. That is why she deleted the data after making a copy. Her partner, Jake Asbury, took himself for a bigger and better nexus and in-between than he was.
What happened was that the man was set up, found out and attacked. His last stand harmed the human Clavel operatives bad enough to put them into extensive medical care for at least two more weeks, but the cybrids were able to bag Jake and hand him over to a "direct inquiry specialist" of Clavel.
Now, Clavel knows who has the data, but has only cybrid muscle left in the field. The local office thereby decided to hire help from outside the company. The PCs.
Carice Marin
DS14 (Net Combat)
DS10 (Physical)
Looks/Attire: thin like a whip, currently wears vendomat disposables (which hang somewhat loose on her), has many piercings (three on the left ear, one in the nose, two in the lower lip), smartshades, do-rag, currently wears a synthface mask.
Armament: flechette pistol with shredder ammo (ignores armor), one flashbang grenade, graphene nunchaku, arachnoweave sleeve, one leg replaced with a cybernetic replacement (had her kneecapping over a debt that ended with bad street medic treatment, sepsis and her losing the leg entirely).
Drones: Situational awareness drone, defence drone
Augmentations: Savvy Jack (Martial Arts, Athletics, Stealth, Shooting; Photo Memory; special storage shards), Skull Gun, REM-Inducer.
Known Associates / Contacts: a few low-key "arrangers" and nexus, other nodejackers. Some criminal operatives she had done jobs with before. A few of these friends help her now, hacking surveillance and removing traces. And do the hacking for her that she asks for, so that she is not in the net (or: as little as possible).
Scenario Outline: The nexus that offers the job is known to be without a conscience. Only the money counts. And payment is a little better than usual, because for the usual fee some operators will not hunt other operators. The nexus has the details of her, where her trace was lost, who her associates are and that the client wants her. Alive. And each and every storage medium she has. Dead, or harmed so much that she cannot answer questions, and the deal is void.
Investigation: Play this out as a series of rolls against either Cognition or Affinity or Equilibrium (depending on the approach) with a DS12. On success, they get one step closer to the target by having one trace pointing to another, or one guy they can put pressure on (or pay) to get a next hint.
Likely link: She was known to frequent certain hacker circles (virtual space, meatspace clubs, known associates), and there are people hacking Halogen Heights surveillance to keep wiping traces. Not only of where she is, but of a larger area. Just so as not to pinpoint her. Perhaps one even got caught by the transmission cops and now needs somebody to pay bail money (and will hand her over when paid). Those people can point to another arranger/nexus that was still willing to work for her, who will in turn reveal which "safe house" (more like: apartment near the bad parts of the heights) he placed her in. After the PCs have dealt with his augmented bodyguard. In that block, Carice has holed up and has drones outside. She will be warned when the PCs are coming, and will likely plant a hasty booby trap inside her door before climbing out the window and up to the flat roof (she lives on level 7 of 9) to then jump over an alley to the next building to get out. Make it a chase with first her defence drone and then perhaps her firing at her pursuers. Further sources of trouble: local gang goons do not like people nosing and muscling around in their territory; getting somebody alive who is more than ready to kill you is a problem all on its own.
