>>>>>(All right chummers, reliable sources sent this information to me, but the story he’s given me just can’t be substantiated. The only reason I’m even posting this is because if it’s true, it could change our whole modus operandi. This could have serious implications if it turns out to be true. Personally though, I hope that for some reason Dayvid is pulling our chains…..)<<<<<

-Captain Chaos

Everyone who’s in the business knows the risk. You play in the shadows, some day, they’ll swallow you whole. But I had no idea that the shadows would get that close to me so soon.

Everything seemed to be fine. The Johnson who had hired us seemed to be legit. We had run a background check on him and found nothing good or bad about him. I my book, that usually signals to me that he’s efficient. Not necessarily trustworthy, no Johnson ever is, but usually worth taking his job as long as it pays enough.

I ran a small three-member team of runners. One Rigger, one Shaman, and I fill in the position of Street Sam. I now have no more chummers. They didn’t make it out from the place the J. sent us to. Jayhawk was good, Leena was even better. Now they’re dead. The only thing I remember of their last moments was the screams.

>>>>>(Oh, come off it. Like the guy said, drek like this comes with the territory. Just like how every runner knows that most deals will result in their being screwed, he should also know that you occasionally are gonna lose a few good friends while on the ride.)<<<<< TuskedRaider

>>>>>(True, but that isn’t gonna bring back his chummers is it? Keep yer’ snide remarks to yourself.)<<<<< Lok’d and Loded

We were hired for a simple little surveillance job. An easy, chump run. Get in, take a sneak peek at their security setup and take some pictures in a few specified rooms to bring back. It was out in some warehouse facilities out in the Redmond Barrens. Wasn’t even that far from where I fraggin’ lived. Just twenty blocks down and a couple over. Been by it a million times. Nothin’ about it seemed weird to me. So my group decided to mount our little espionage job that night.

>>>>>(Mistake one: He shoulda done his homework and checked the place out despite his local knowledge. Mistake Two: He took a job from a Johnson that he couldn’t identify. No wonder his team got geeked.)<<<<< Banger

So we get there, right, and everything seems to be on the up and up. The layout the Johnson gave us seems to be accurate enough and everything is right where he said it would be. Security is light and Jayhawk and I have no problem penetrating the outer perimeter. Leena’s small stealth drone followed right behind us while she sat back in the van and kept an eye on the electronic security rigs. Jayhawk led me to the first building after we were sure that we weren’t being watched and after a quick little security rigging from Leena, we got easy access to the door codes. Once we were in, it was the typical corporate lab set up; anti-septic, white corridors with sparse signs of deviance from anything else. We entered into an intersecting hallway where we found a long red strip running along the walls at the bottom. According to the info the Johnson gave us, we were close. The run seemed to be a cakewalk after all. A few seconds later, Leena was on the comm transmitting us the codes necessary to gain access to the huge metal door Jayhawk was trying to crack open. The codes got us in without a hitch and then we saw what the J. wanted us to get info on.

The lab was in stark contrast to the corridors. Blood streaked just about every wall in the lab and there were surgical tools everywhere in various stages of use. Jayhawk assensed the room quickly, and he determined the blood was most likely fresh. Two hours fresh. Jayhawk started getting sick about then. Started with a headache. Acting as quickly as possible, Jayhawk and I started to tear through the lab for a computer terminal, and all the time Jayhawk started to become more ill. He stepped out of the lab for a moment and left me to the job while he scoped out the door. I found the computer terminal and I used the new plugs I had just had installed to do a very crude decking job into the computer station’s datafiles. I took what looked the most promising and logged off. It was about then that we started to hear the frantic reports coming in from Leena.

First it was just a constant blur of coordinates. The first coordinate was located no more than twenty feet from the room Jayhawk and I had entered, so I started to snap off a few pictures of the lab, and then Leena started to sound worried. It wasn’t usual for her to lose her composure like that, so Jayhawk and I though it was best to hurry the frag up and get outta' there.

So we start to haul hoop outta’ the building when Leena started to crack. Kept shouting at us that there were things outside the perimeter of the buildings. We asked her what they were, but she said she’d never seen anything like them before, and they were starting to wise up to her location. She had set up her location in the van about a block away from our entry point. The van was a piece of drek intentionally to keep attention away from it. Leena was a security rigger so she could care less about her vehicle. About thirty seconds passed before we heard the screams over the comm.

It was an insane yowling, with savage growls and gnawing noises. We could hear Leena’s muffled screams through the comm and Jayhawk began to run. Leena and Jayhawk were kinda’ attached to each other y’know, so his first instinct was to go save her.

>>>>>(So what’s so fragging scary about this? Sounds to me like it was some kinda’ invisible crit hanging around the premises. Maybe some sadistic security mage cast an illusion spell on a hellhound. Had that happen to me once on a run, and yeah it’s a pain in the hoop, but there’s nothing abnormal about that kind of threat to me…)<<<<<

-Incarna

I saw it come out of the shadows and take Jayhawk down like it was nothing. I saw a flash of magic from Jayhawk and smelled burning fur and the thing yowled. Now I heard the sound of Jayhawk and Leena both screaming at the top of their lungs and then the thing that ripped into Jayhawk turned to look at me. The only thing that gave me the split second I needed to escape was Leena’s drone. In her panic, she had set the drone’s dog brain to fire at anything it regarded to be a threat. It shot the thing twice before it spun around and crushed the fragging thing. Her stealth drone was tough. Reinforced armor and heavy weapons in addition to it’s stealth capabilities. It crushed it like tin foil.

>>>>>(Like I said, big deal. The Awakened world is full of drek like that. Coulda’ been anything…)<<<<<

-Incarna

>>>>>(Keep reading, Incarna, there’s more stuff you haven’t read yet.)<<<<<

-Captain Chaos

I started to run. There was nothing I could have done for my chummers. I ran in between a couple of buildings and hoped that the worst was over. That I’d wake up from all of it, back at my flop, safe and warm. No such luck. I heard the thing beating the stealth drone into the ground and then heard the sound cease. I waited there in the dark, shaking with fear. I could hear the thing breathing around the corner. It’s feet slapped against the hard ground, claws clacking against the ferro-concrete. I’ve never lost it on the job, ever. Bu, that time proved to be the exception to the rule.

Then there was a faint buzzing noise, and I felt my cyber go fuzzy for a moment as my augmented strength was diminished, and I felt this weird kind of wave go over me. My insides felt twitchy and funny, and I could almost hear someone speaking in the darkness of the lot. I had to peek around the corner now that everything was quiet.

There were three or four guards standing at the entrance Jayhawk and I had used to get in and out and they were all armed to the teeth. Except for one guy, wearing a white lab coat, blood splattered on it at various points, holding this weird metal rod. He would twist the rod and, I swear to god, no drek, that the things would go all weird and limp, almost like they were obeying commands. While the crits were standing there, I got a glimpse of them when one stepped into the light. I know it couldn’t be possible, but then again, I know what I saw. The thing was a shape-shifter. It stood like a man, but had the face of a tiger. It had big claws and huge teeth jutting out from its bottom jaw. And I know it couldn’t fragging be what I thought it was but there it was, just standing there and waiting for instructions. Weirdest drek I ever saw.

I stayed there in the shadows for what seemed like days, but it was only about a half an hour. When I finally moved, I ran full speed ahead, right the hell out of that complex. I couldn’t even dare to go and get Leena and Jayhawk’s remains. I was too afraid of running into those things again. I got back to the flop, gathered up most of my important gear and crashed at a decker friend of mine. I knew then that the J. had screwed me big time. He didn’t expect that any of us would actually live, so I figured I’d let my decker chum figure out the encryption on the data I’d stolen.

He could only save half of the data from the encryption, but what I found weirded me out well enough. Here’s what little I found:

After reading that, I knew I had to get this to this posting. Anyone reading this should be able to figure it out. The warehouses were Saeder-Krupp territories and the creatures being used as para-security were somehow modified. The corporations may be at work with something sinister. SK comes up in the transcript, and by whatever means they were using had managed to tame otherwise uncontrollable beasts. This "Project 1674" could mean the end of our standard techniques of infiltration and make all of our lives a living hell. Post this at as many boards as humanly possible, and watch out for this at all costs.

>>>>>(This guy has obviously never met a shape-shifter before. Couldn’t have been done. Shape-Shifters are so predatorial that there would be no way to control their urges, especially since they’re dual natured. The "weird rod" he saw couldn’t possibly have "controlled" a shape-shifter through any kind of tech or cyber. Magic and tech doesn’t work that way.)<<<<<

-Morris

>>>>>(Who said that the weird rod had to be technological? Perhaps, there was some kind of magic involved that could override the shape-shifter’s will.)<<<<<

-Slinga

>>>>>(No slotting way. No control or manipulation spell I’ve ever seen could tame a shifter. They’re too predatorial and instinct driven. Their minds can’t be altered like that.)<<<<<

-Magister

>>>>>(You’d be surprised what can be done with a para-critter’s body. I was on a run where I had heard rumors of something similar. Even talked to a doc who claimed to have worked on something cybernetic that could override the bestial instinct of things even as tough as shifters. That mage, Jayhawk, got sick from the background count in those labs. Screwing around with nature does that. It all fits.)<<<<<

-Dredd

>>>>>(Dredd, you’re buying this? I thought you were smarter than that.)<<<<<

-Kyasanti

>>>>>(Ken, I know what I saw…ask Chuck sometime, and he’ll tell you the same.)<<<<<

-Dredd

Project 1674 could be used in many different ways. The most obvious way of using it is for protection around the areas owned by the great dragon Lofwyr himself. SK could be cultivating special cybernetic parts for use in paranimals to keep them more controlled and docile when necessary.

Another possibility, is that the creatures may not be shape-shifters, but something similar to the Metahuman Virus present in the DNA/DOA (SR I Supplement Adventure) and mixed with brainwashing cyberware. Another possibility, is that through some sickening, obscene, or toxic ritual, someone figured out how to step around the shape-shifters’ primal urges.

Whatever the source of control, Project 1674’s subjects can be added to facilities that otherwise would not be a problem for your team of shadowrunners.

Subjects from the 1674 Labs follow the standard Shape-Shifter rules as in the Shadowrun Companion by Fasa ™. There are a few exceptions though. The dual nature usually held by the creature’s are still intact, but have been altered in order to keep the human thought portion easily controlled so that the subjects can be programmed to follow orders. The bestial nature component is now altered so that it can receive/transmit actions and "programming". By programming, I do not mean computer "programming", but actual mind "programming". The source of the "programming" can be decided by the game master, and could be either cybernetic or magical in nature.

As one could imagine, it takes something radically different to implant cyber or implement magic on such a creature as a shape-shifter. This method also could be determined by the game master. But also keep in mind other untamable beasts that could be used. Vampires, wendigos, and bandersnatches (oh my!!). The possibilities are endless, but for proper balance, these creatures should be limited. Remember that magic and cyber don’t mix, and when they do (i.e. cybermancy) the side effects are often debilitating. The beasts themselves could be as lethal to the security force themselves if not properly controlled/contained. It’s a tough call, so take this post like every other threat post: with a drekload of sodium.

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