Kuma

Puma? Ain't that some kinda cat? Ohh . . . right; Kuma. Yeah, he's some sort of slanty-eyed bad ass. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, ahh whatever, he's Asian, sokay? What matters is that he used to work for the Yakuza and he's sent more than a few folks to the big shadowrun in the sky. He doesn't look too chromed, but I hear he's packed to the gills with that crap. Whatever, I hear he's cold enough to be a machine. How the frag would some street schmuck come up with that much nuyen anyway? The Yaks certainly don't pay him enough, lest he wouldn't a left 'em, neh? Huh? Yeah, he's an all around tough guy, takes a bullet and keeps coming, faster than a speeding train, able to leap tall buildings, and so on. Oh! He likes submachineguns, that I remember; something about him having some wiz guns made by some fella. Scan this, I think he's still kinda in the drek right now, so tread carefully when you meet him, chummer.

Physical Description

Current Stats

Character Progression

• Karma award for Run 2 +5+2 = +7 karma [7/7]
• Buy Close Combat, -2 karma [5/7]
• Karma award for Run 3 +5+2 = +7 karma [12/14]
• Buy Kippup, -2 karma [10/14]
• Raise Willpower from 4 to 5, -10 karma [0/14]
• Spotted 4 karma for Electronics 2 [-4/14]
• Intermediate karma Run 4 +10 [6/24]
• Final Karma adjustment for Run 4 +6 karma [12/30]
• Warstories +3 karma [15/33]
• Raised Willpower to 6 [3/33]
• Run 5 karma, +4 [7/37]
• Raise Electronics to 3, -4.5 karma [2.5/37]
• Run 7 karma, +4 [6.5/41]
• Vocation - Bodyguard 3, -6 karma [0.5/41]
• Run 8, +4 karma [4.5/45]
• Run9: +4 karma [8.5/49]
• Run10: +4 karma [12.5/53]
• Run11: +5 karma [17.5/58]

Buddy: Manny Fuerto (Mechanic): Manny is a long-time friend of Kuma's who lived on the street and in the Urban Chaos for almost five years alongside Kuma. Manny is an optimistic, hyper kinetic ork with a love of cars. He owns a small garage in the Seattle District and spends considerable time and energy tinkering on his latest hot rod for the next street racing match. Manny is married and has a small baby son, Jesus.

Buddy: Red Calhoun (Armorer): Another of Kuma's street friends, Red is a dour, practical human with a knack for guns. He manages a firearm store in the Seattle district with most of his clients being underworld or shadow-related. He maintains ties with the Shotozumi-gumi and provides customization for many of their soldiers. Has a stormy relationship with an ex-stripper, Dawn.

Buddy: Truman (Street Doc): Truman is a human street doc who operates a completely underground cyber clinic on the fringe of downtown. He is a former military surgeon who left the service under questionable circumstances. He makes a living supplying chrome to shadowrunners, some key gangs, and anyone else with enough cred. He tries to stay neutral in the current Mob War, but tends to favor the yakuza.

Contact: Gunjo (Yakuza Mage): Gunjo is a human veteran yakuza enforcer and also a mage. He was Kuma's partner during his Yajuu days. The two got along well, with Gunjo providing magical support to Kuma's brute strength. While friends in the past, because of Kuma's departure, their relationship has detriorated into that of business acquaintences. Gunjo never believed in the yakuza ideals and is a colder, business-oriented person than Yajuu ever was.

Contact: Elise (Fixer): Elise is an elven fixer who specializes in security and military equipment. She is a successful fixer who caters to the merenary and shadowrunning crowds. She operates out of the northern Seattle district, but has connections throughout the city. Kuma turned to her during his enforcer days and found her friendly personality and metahuman nature a refreshing change from the typical male human japanese yakuza fixers.

Contact: Edgar Meens (Bookie): Kuma's love of gambling has inevitably led its way to a bookie. Edgar is an ork bookie who works out of a barber shop in the southern Seattle district. While a gaijin metahuman, he works for the yakuza. This allows the yakuza to exploit the blue collar orks and trolls of the Tacoma district. Kuma has paid off a couple of debts in the past by doing legbreaking work for Edgar, and on one occassion he acted as the bookie's bodyguard.

Contact: Orchid (Joygirl): Orchid is the first of two contacts that Kuma met during his sporadic forays into the Korean neighborhoods in the metroplex. Young, beautiful, and confident; she is his woman of choice when physical escape is on the mind. Orchid probably has some connections to the local Seoulpa Ring, but that topic has yet to come up during their "meeting."

Contact: Kim (Decker): Kim is the second of Kuma's korean contacts. He is a decker who works freelance for a Seoulpa Ring. His specialty is underworld investigative work and he has a parallel dislike of the metroplex's yakuza. Kuma hired Kim for the investigation involving his grandfather's assassination.

Contact: So Lo (Squatter): "Lo" is just disturbed enough to complicate keeping a steady job. Depending on the day he is asked, he is a former Urban Brawl player, UCAS soldier, fry cook, government spy, or janitor. Regardless of what he may have been in the past, he is generally quite lucid and very observant. His attention span is not great and he is generally quiet between outbursts, giving the casual observer the impression that he only deserves their pity, if that. Kuma came across Lo when he was living on the streets. Lo is now about fifty years old, but still gets around with little difficulty. Kuma has had sporadic success with using Lo to stakeout a location for him. Lo has occasional memory lapses that can be a little frustrating during conversations. He has a stocky build with a slight paunch. His ethnicity is a mongrel mixture of Asian, African, and Caucasian. He understands all of the languages Kuma speaks, but generally uses Cityspeak with no clear accent that identifies his native language. He has been known to work for peanuts, literally.

IDs

1. Anonymous
2. John Takeshi [inf]
3. Tom Ling [4]
4. John Takeshi, revamp [inf]
5. Jake Smith [1]

Apartments (parentheses indicate which ID was used to set up the apartment)

1. Medium: Starting apartment from Yakuza life (2)
2. Low: Safehouse (1)
3. Medium (3)
4. Low: safehouse in the Redmon Barrens (1)
   

Weapons and Equipment

Weapons Ammo, SMG, Gel (200) Ammo, SMG, Regular (500) Brother's Keeper SMG Extra clips, SMG (6) Little Oni SMG Little Oni SMG w/ Gas-Vent [4] and Sling Sound Suppressor	Explosives Grenades, Concussion (20) Grenades, Defensive (20) Grenades, Flash (10) Grenades, Gas (10) Grenades, IR Smoke (10) Grenades, Offensive (20)
Clothing & Armor Forearm Guards [+0/1] Secure Jacket [5/3, 6/4 w/ Ti Bone Lacing]	Electronics
Tools	Surveillance and Security Low-Light Binoculars Microtransceiver (F4, E4) w/ subvocal mic
Surveillance Measures & Countermeasures Fake credstick [3]	Security Devices
Survival Gear	Skillsofts and Chips
Cyberwear Cyber Ears w/ Dampener, Hearing Amplification, Select Sound Filter [5], and Spatial Recognizer Cyber Eyes [alpha] w/ Flare Compensation, Image Link, Low-Light, and Thermographic. Datajack [alpha] Knowsoft Link [alpha] Smartlink [2, alpha] Titanium Bone Lacing [alpha] Wired Reflexes [2] w/ Reflex Trigger [alpha]	Bioware Damage Compensators [2] Enhanced Articulation Muscle Augmentation [1] Muscle Toner [3] Trauma Damper
Biotech/Medical Trauma Patch x2	Vehicles Ferrari 770 Spider w/ Concealed Armor [1], Runflat Tires x4, Anti-Theft System [6], Morphing License Plate, Transponder Library [5, 75MP], Electric Shock Alarm Option, and Remote Activation Termination Chip

Surgery

	Ess (Base)	Cost (w/o index)	Index	Final Cost
Wired Reflexes [2] w/ Reflex Trigger*	1.6 (3.2)	1424 (178)	1	1424
Titanium Bone Lacing*	1.125 (2.25)	600 (75)	1.5	900
Orientation System	0.125 (0.25)	120 (15)	1.5	180
Internal GPS	0.05 (0.1)	16 (2)	1.5	24
Skillwires [rating 4, 96MP (can run two at once)]*	0.4 (0.8)	1536 (192)	1	1536
Chipjacks x2*	0.2 (0.4)	16 (2)	.9	24
total 4088
Damage Comp 3-5		375	.6	375
Muscle Toner 3	free up 0.3 Index	75		300
Drop muscle aug	free up 0.1 index
Dermal sheath 1	0.35 (0.7)	24		288
Blood filter	0.5 (1.0)	50		400
Ultrasonic vision (alpha)	0.25 (0.4)	10		40

* - By the book, neurally invasive stuff, even a simple datajack, require twice essence when calculating surgical trauma.

• If Kuma gets his Ears (62.2 k¥) replaced in the same surgery, that would probably just mean another 20 k¥ or so in care and 469.6 k¥ for the ware. This would free up 0.15 Essence.
• If Kuma gets his Eyes (14.6 k¥ base) replaced in the same surgery, that would probably just mean another 20 k¥ or so in care and 116.8 k¥ for the ware. It would also free up 0.06 Essence.
• Datajack (1 k¥ base), Knowsoft Link (1 k¥ base), Smartlink 2 (3.5 k¥ base), were all Alpha. It would run 44 k¥ for gear and possibly more hospital care. It would free up 0.21 Essence to replace them all.
• Dermal Sheathing 1 (0.7 E E, 60k¥; 0.35 E, 720 k¥)
• Blood filter rating 5 (1 E, 50k¥; 0.5 E, 400 k¥)
• Ultrasonic vision (0.5 E, 10k¥; 0.25 E, 160 k¥

That's a total gear cost of 4088 k¥.

For surgical trauma, we have

• Wired 2 w/RT: 6.4
• TBL: 2.25
• Orientation system: 0.25
• Internal GPS: 0.2
• Skillwires: 1.6
• Chipjacks: 0.8
• Something else: 2.0 or 4.0

That's a total of up to 13.5 or 15.5, maybe more if Lars decides to have Kuma replace more stuff. Essence of 8.9 or greater causes 10 boxes of Physical damage if it's all done at once. I think it's a little silly that the book allows for this, but I have watched open heart surgery and watched a person kept alive by a machine for hours. The book sequence gives 8.9+ for the last category, so 15.5 seems excessive. If you look at the numbers, it appears they follow a Fibonacci sequence. The last two increments are 1.3 and 2.1, so we get 8.9 + 3.4, or 12.3 for an upper cap on implant surgery. OK, so two surgeries it is.

Kuma is having his gear stuffed into the hole left from his clunky old Alphaware Wired 2 w/RT and TiBL. That's two "holes", 2.56 Essence and 1.8 Essence. It seems that the Wired 2 w/RT should be the last thing upgraded since it's closer to the surface.

Profile

Kuma will need a medical profile. Dr. Peters works that up in a single day.

Surgery 1

Replace 1.8 Essence of Alpha TiBL with Delta TiBL (1.125), Orientation System (0.125), Skillwires (0.4), Internal GPS (0.05), and one Chipjack (0.1). That's 1.8 Essence right on the nose. It causes 2.25+0.25+1.6+0.2+0.4 = 4.7 Essence of trauma, or 8 boxes of Physical damage.

It will take 15 days for the surgical plan to be completed (that's half the base time; positive options make it tough to score lots of successes and the doc *has* to take "Essence Slot" to use the "hole" already taken up). Dr. Peters does not like to handle a client for long periods of time, so he has a team of four people working on the procedure to get in done in half a week. We'll throw in a day of pre-op, a day of surgery, and then it's time to recover. Dr. Peters has access to a black clinic that has hospital grade gear (-2) with medical gear that is cutting edge, but the SR canon precludes runners access to ratings higher than 6 (rating 6, +0). He uses a team of five other junior surgeons and a magical healer when he works (-6); yeah, that's gonna cost money, but Kuma's gonna need it. I can't see more than six surgeons productively working on one patient, otherwise I'd have more. Kuma has less than two Essence (+1) and he has Bioware totalling to an index of 3 (+2). The ware being installed is Delta grade (+6) but I am not going to count any of this chunk of gear as modifying attributes (+0). There's the +2 for Essence Slot. That's a total modifier of +2, so the best possible TN at this point is 9 (for d10), barring any secret GM stuff. The highly skilled Dr. Peters, with his Biotech (Cybertechnology Implantation) 6(8) has a chance, but Dr. Peters needs 4 successes to get a positive option and successfully fill the "hole" of his previous ware. With the medical gear of rating 6, he might get one complementary sucess, but I am not guaranteed to get 3 successes on the Biotech roll. So, I'm gonna improvise a little and take that to mean a net effect of 0 options, so I can just take more negative options to allow Kuma to get his gear. That's all that anyone needs to know...

Kuma gets his gear and Kuma will take 8 boxes of Physical Damage from this. The base time to heal is 144 hours, or 6 days, per box (24 x mods x 2 for medical care). Dr. Peters has the finest nurses, Biotech (Extended Care) 4 (8), which speeds his recovery. Dr. Peters has magical care for his patients (-2), Kuma is tough and determined (-1 x 2), the nurses are skilled (-5), Kuma still has enough Bioware to make him a sensitive little sammy (+2), and he's damn near a toaster at this point (+2). That's a net modifier of -5.

Lars decided to add some more stuff:

• Dermal Sheathing 2 (0.7 E E, 60k¥; 0.35 E, 720 k¥)
• Blood filter rating 5 (1 E, 50k¥; 0.5 E, 400 k¥)
• Ultrasonic vision (0.5 E, 10k¥; 0.25 E, 160 k¥)
• Add the bioware stuff

Recovery:

• 10 boxes, TN 7, 2 successes, 3 days
• 9 boxes, TN 6, 4 successes, 1.5 days
• 8 boxes, TN 5, 2 successes, 3 days
• 7 boxes, TN 4, 4 successes, 1.5 days
• 6 boxes, TN 3, 4 succeses, 1.5 days
• 5 boxes (base time is now 4 days), TN 3, 6 successes, 0.75 days
• 4 boxes, TN 3, 5 successes, 0.8 days
• 3 boxes, TN 3, 5 successes, 0.8 days
• 2 boxes, let's call it one day to heal the rest.

That's ten days, or 60 k¥ of care (hospital with magical backup, and all pumped for delta-grade). The surgical costs come out to 72k¥ for the planning (I'm not gonna multiply for delta twice...), 15 k¥ for the surgical team, and 12 k¥ for access to a delta-grade O.R. to do the procedure.

Options

Drop muscle aug, get muscle toner 3 (cultured), Damge comp 3-5.

In the end - let's go with two weeks per surgery and 6 Meg total.

 

Starting Stats

Background

John Han Takeshi was born on January 5th, 2030 at Seattle General Hospital in downtown Seattle. John was the love child of a secret affair between Keiko Takeshi and Han Yi. Keiko was the only child of Hanada Takeshi, a successful corporate executive with peripheral yakuza connections. Keiko's mother, Emiko, died of VITAS when Keiko was eight, leaving the stern businessman to raise her. She grew up protected and isolated, but her curiosity and precocious nature led to a forbidden love.

John's father was a Korean yakuza soldier, Han Yi. Han's involvement in the Seattle yakuza was the result of the Korean reinforcements of the 2020s. Han was the dashing and dangerous rebel to Keiko's curious debutante. They carried on secretly for a year, but when Keiko told Han she was pregnant, he left her. It would be the last she would ever see of John's father.

Alone and expecting, Keiko turned to her father and told him everything about the relationship. She knew she wanted to keep the child, but beyond that was lost. Hanada convinced her to keep the identity of the father a secret, both for her sake and the child's. Hanada believed strongly in the traditional ways of the yakuza, including racial purity. To reveal the Korean father would only do harm to the child and to the family. Keiko was convinced.

Soon after John's birth, Han Yi died while on assignment. His death made her contemplate her own mortality and future and the importance of John's true heritage. She wrote a letter describing her and Han's romance and John's Korean heritage, entrusting it to reputable data courier company to be released to John on his 18th birthday.

Keiko raised John under the watchful eye of his grandfather. Hanada provided a discrete apartment in a secluded upper-middle class guarded neighborhood of Aurora Village in the northern Seattle district. Keiko supplemented Hanada's allowance with scratch-made traditional Japanese pottery. In general the mother and son kept to themselves. During this time, Keiko became an alcoholic, a result of her still-broken heart and the sterile isolated world, which her father had steered her into. John developed an active imagination, a keen intellect, and self-reliance in response to his family environment.

Unfortunately, Hanada's violent world sought them out. In the spring of 2042, while driving from an afternoon at the Seattle Zoo, mafia assassins attacked Hanada, Keiko, and John. The violent city gunfight left both Hanada and Keiko dead. John escaped by crawling into the sewers and running until his lungs burned and the acrid stench of the sewers blurred his vision. His life was changed forever.

John was alone, on the streets of Seattle with nowhere to go. Because of Hanada's protection and isolation of his daughter and grandson, John had very little interaction with other yakuza persons. He didn't know anyone to call or anywhere to go and was broke. The first days were the most difficult, as John struggled to avoid roaming gangs and psychotic squatters, all while scraping enough food to survive on. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months.

During these first months on the street, John met and befriended two other squatters. Manny Fuerto was an optimistic, hyper kinetic, ork who ran away from an abusive home. Red Calhoun was a dour, practical human who fell to the streets with his mother after she lost her Tacoma factory job. She was murdered within a week, leaving Red to fend for himself. This trio found the support and protection necessary to eek a life in the concrete jungle of the Seattle metroplex for an entire year. They roamed the Seattle district, always returning the to central neighborhood of Columbia.

Eventually, they ran afoul of one of the local thrill gangs, the Morgue Stalkers. Instead of fleeing their turf, the trio sought out a rival gang and joined. The Urban Chaos (UC) was tame as most gangs go, focusing on drug dealing and the occasional enforcer/extortion job for the Shotozumi-gumi. For four years, the trio made a home in the UC. John adopted the nickname, The Beast, for his combat prowess; Manny honed his rigging and mechanic skills; and Red became the gang's only armorer. The gang's exploits left many enemies and comrades dead in the streets.

In 2047, at the age of 17, John decided to leave the UC and move up in the ranks of the underworld. Manny had left the gang a year ago to take a promising mechanic's job at a local garage and Red was already starting to save up money and scout for shadow loans for the possibility of becoming an armorer full time. John got a job as a low-level kumi-in (soldier) in the Seattle district Shotozumi-gumi because of his combat experience with the UC.

John quickly started gaining a reputation for brutal efficiency in the lower ranks of the yakuza. His nickname, The Beast, became the Japanese translation, Yajuu. During his third year with the yakuza, his superiors discovered John's lineage. John had kept his mother and grandfather's identities quiet so as to prove himself on an even playing field. His world quickly changed. Hanada Takeshi had a significant inheritance awaiting John. While a notable portion had been lost to a corrupt lawyer, several hundred thousand nuyen was still left. John only knew the hard life of the streets, and so used the money to buy a valuable cyber edge. The remaining money allowed him to discover his worst vice - gambling. After two months, all the inheritance was gone, spent on new chrome and empty betting slips.

The new chrome gave John an edge over all his companions. Coupled with his knack for fighting, he quickly rose through the ranks of the kumi-in. Within three more years, he was working along side a yakuza mage, Gunjo, as a top street assassination/enforcement team. The pair was one of the best the Shotozumi had in the Seattle district.

A second result of John's revealed identity was delayed until 2053. In that year, the data courier company found and delivered Keiko's letter explaining the truth of John's heritage. John was stunned and took a vacation to San Francisco to contemplate his new worldview. John held none of the prejudices the yakuza unofficially and officially projected. His years on the streets, fighting and depending on metahumans and other ethnicities had abolished any subconscious programming from his mother and grandfather. He returned to Seattle, unashamed of his Korean heritage, determined to learn and understand his father, but prepared to keep this information to himself because of the damage it would cause his yakuza career.

The next four years were violent and dangerous, but at the same time routine for the yakuza enforcer, Yajuu. The money he made on jobs would be spent within a couple months on gambling, women, and more cyber improvements. His superiors considered him a perfect kobun: loyal, dedicated, competent, and always needing more work. John continued his friendships with Manny and Red, both of which had grown into their respective professions by this time. John also became good friends with his street doc, Truman. Hours on recovery beds and under the former military doctor's laser scalpel led to a mutual fascination with body enhancements and mortality. Also during this time, John's hobbies grew, providing an escape from the yakuza street life. Street racing gave him a safe avenue of excitement and thrill seeking, and an interest in Korean language culture was his small secret piece of humanity. He learned to speak Korean and read books on modern and ancient Korean culture. He never seemed to have enough time to finish most of those books, but he tackled the Korean language with a passion.

The end of Yajuu's yakuza career started with a normal job. York, a veteran street samurai had stolen from the Shotozumi-gumi and it was Yajuu and Gunjo's job to terminate him. Facing the barrel of Yajuu's SMG, the man pleaded for his life with the promise of the truth about his grandfather's assassination. York was a green shadowrunner back in 2042 when his team carried out a hit against Hanada Takeshi's limo. The team had been hired by the rival yakuza clan, Nishidon-gumi, to kill the wakagashira-hosa and plant false clues implicating the mafia, both on the scene and through contacts on the street. Yajuu stood stunned for a second and then ended the honorless dog's life. His duty would not be sacrificed at the word of a thief. Over the next year, Yajuu made Gunjo swear to keep the information quiet so he could investigate the assassination further. The years had washed much of the information away, but through the skills of an outside decker, John was able to uncover enough evidence to convince himself of the veracity of York's words.

John was determined to avenge his family's honor and name. He brought his intentions and evidence to his superior, wakagashira-hosa Tim Reyashyu. Reyashyu held a different stance on the matter. Over a decade had passed and the Nishidon was now a tentative ally. Such a violent act of vengeance would threaten the reputation of the Nishidon and the reputation of the entire Seattle rengo. It was now time to make the best choice for the clan. John was still set on his task, but Reyashyu convinced him to let him do his own investigation to confirm the accusation.

Reyashyu did obtain enough proof to point the finger at the Nishidon-gumi and specifically, the oyabun of the entire clan, Isao Nishidon. During the course of the investigation, Reyashyu also uncovered information about John's Korean father. The wakagashira-hosa attempted to blackmail John into silence with his lineage, but John was even more determined to avenge his family's honor. John took his intention to Reyashyu's boss, Shiro Tanaka, the second-in-command of the Shotozumi-gumi. John made his case for vengeance, but in the course of discussions, Reyashyu revealed Yajuu's Korean heritage and instantly John's fate was sealed. Tanaka was suspect of the truth of this claim and Reyashyu did not back John's claims. Tanaka made the same arguments for rengo stability, but John could tell that he had been branded impure and thus duplicitous.

Yajuu tried to return to being a yakuza enforcer, but word spread quickly. His competence, loyalty, and dedication were immediately questioned. The organization that pretended to value honor, had cast it aside for business practicality. He quickly saw the pervasive prejudices inherent in the yakuza ranks. His former friends, colleagues, and underlings now looked at him differently. It was time for a change - shadowrunning.