DRACONIC AFFAIRS

POSTED BY: ARETE

Historically Boston is not a legendary city of dragons, and yet not one, but two of the creatures are currently calling it home. Back in the Clutch file we got a goodly amount of information on Damon, and I’ll update that since he’s still here, and also share info on Celedyr, who has pretty much settled in Boston as his home away from Caerleon. Luckily there are plenty of Bostonians with Welsh ancestry to make him feel at home. Other than that I’ll just drop some other sightings and rumors on you before I take a nap and wait for the triumvirate to feed us the inside scoop.

DAMON

The (literal) local party-paranimal has not moved on like others had projected. If anything he has actually settled more into the city. His fling with Mayor Meghan was

short-lived but seems to have paid off in spades as a way to keep the city government off his back. His rela-tionship with the witches has been longer than the one with the mayor, and it is as full of troubles as any real relationship. He’s settled on a side in the mob issues.

His corporate connections appear to have expanded.

His legitimate and illicit enterprises have all been suc-cessful and profitable. His rambunctious nature has not waned. We have also reached a point of almost one hundred percent confirmation on his draconic nature after all the speculation. Let me expound on all this.

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The Damon Moves On pool is still open. Dates are still

available, and the pot grows every day. Did the date you first picked already pass by? Another fifty buys you a new one!

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^/dev/grrl

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dev, I think you might have a gambling problem.

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^Netcat

First, the mayoral relationship. This will be short, there wasn’t much to it. Damon and Meghan O’Rylan were the hottest couple in town for the tabloid photogs for about three months before the pressures of office made Mayor Meghan step back. Honestly, I think they are still seeing each other, but no one spots them together any-more. Whatever his current relationship status is, Damon seems to have earned a whole pile of get-out-of-jail free cards as the city never seems to look too deeply into his illicit dealings.

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Word is no one who sees the two of them together

survives. A photo popped up about a month ago. One shot, uploaded to an ABS media site, and then nothing else.

The photographer who uploaded the photo disappeared.

The company isn’t saying where the photographer is, what they paid him, or if they paid him. There have been a number of runs contracted out of Damon-backed clubs to get all traces of that photo purged.

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^Southie

Oh, the Witches of Salem, how I love your wild and carefree celebrations. Damon has continued to attend every Wiccan holiday celebration, and the events contin-ue to draw huge crowds—the only limit seems to be the size of the venue. Southie explained the anti-Damonite’s sentiment not being personal, that it’s just opposition to the presence of any dragon. But recently another group has formed that is actively opposed to Damon himself.

There are witches on both sides of the issue, but there’s a steady trickle of members from the anti-Damon’s pres-ence group to the anti-Damon group. These ladies have been contracting jobs to hurt his business in Boston in an effort to get him to leave. Thus far it hasn’t worked, which may have something to do with the classic Wiccan

philos-ophy of balance and the rule of three, where what you do comes back at you in triple. That can be a pretty effective deterrent when you consider a dragon’s ability to deliver.

The kiddie wands might be cast aside in favor of more potent weapons soon, though. Word is the anti-Damon crowd has gained a pair of leaders who don’t care about the Wiccan tradition. In fact, most rumors peg them as a toxic wolf shaman and a free toxic spirit of beasts. Not good news for Damon, but really just as bad of news for the witches. If the shit comes back threefold, it’s coming because of that pair of dark-king spawn.

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Bad play, witches. I’m no fan of dragons, but that’s a

Faustian deal if I ever saw one.

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^Frosty

Morelli or O’Rilley. Which side did Damon choose?

(Drumroll please.) Neither. O’Rilley kept coming af-ter Damon’s shipments and inroads while Morelli kept pushing for Damon to expand his operations alongside the mob. Damon looked for support in getting O’Rilley off his scales from the Morellis and then went to O’Ril-ley and offered to expand his BAD business with them if they’d leave him be. When Morelli took him at his word and went after O’Rilley, it looked like they were trying to horn in on their deal with Damon. Cue series of quick-ly escalating mob skirmishes until the Commissione stepped in and told them to knock it off. Damon, having gotten a good look at O’Rilley’s connections, promptly exploited them. He took the Mafia family down a peg while opening up and expanding his import/export routes. Laughed all the way to the bank.

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The Commissione is ticked. They know they got duped

and used. Damon is definitely going to feel some backlash from that little game.

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^Fianchetto

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Angelo Morelli got trapped in the middle of it all and ended

up targeted for a hit. Damon saved his ass, and now the soldato works for the dragon. I heard a rumor that after Damon stopped the hitters, Angelo nearly knocked him out cold with a haymaker. It was like thug bonding.

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^Southie

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Or another day in South Boston, but what’s the

difference. ;)

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^Sticks

Damon’s speculated connections to Celedyr have been solidified. Though he does not work directly for Celedyr, there are definite connections between the two on the corporate side of things, confirmed by runners in Boston tracing work contracted through Damon back to Celedyr’s operations. The relationship seems to fit the

“trusted Johnson” role more than anything else. Most

of the runs Damon ends up brokering involve Celedyr’s interest in old rituals and ancient European artifacts, es-pecially those related to cultures with a rich dragon lore.

Along with connections to Celedyr (and not neces-sarily NeoNET), Damon has also made some interesting connections at Wuxing. To be specific, Wuxing World-wide Shipping and their smuggling operation. This little relationship was already in development when Southie reported, but he didn’t have the full story. These days almost every criminal in Boston knows that Damon uses WWS and that messing with their smuggling ops could very well mean messing with a dragon. Now I’m not say-ing this doesn’t happen, but it’s always a good idea to do a little extra legwork to find out if a WWS freighter you are targeting is carrying any of Damon’s goods—--/

or should I say BADs.

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Can we penalize Arete for bad jokes?

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^Slamm-0!

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Only if we can do the same to you.

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^Glitch

Mentioning his BADs makes for a smooth transition into Damon’s illegal operations. Thanks to his connec-tions in city hall, that slick divide-and-conquer of the lo-cal Mafia families, and a growing supply chain, Damon has become the source for Bio-Awakened Drugs (BADs) in Boston and throughout most of the NEMA. He brings enough in from growers around Salem to keep the local economy healthy, but gets the bulk of his product from growers all around the world. Most people believe he uses WWS to smuggle it in, and rumor has it he cut the mob in for one percent of his gross, which is evidently enough vig to keep them from coming after him hard even though he pissed of the Commissione. Money talks. The industry can’t be a major moneymaker, since too many people still fear BADs after all the tempo cra-ziness, but the rarity and expense makes for a nice—and growing—little income stream.

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Word on the street is that the Yakuza, though small in

Boston, may be putting pressure on Damon to let them share in the pie. The Yaks are representing the entire Japanacorp bloc. Offers of discounted shipping through Shiawase and smoother passage into the harbor provided by Renraku may pull Damon away from Wuxing and put him at odds with the Mafia.

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Mihoshi Oni

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It would take a lot of pressure and convincing to make

Damon move his business over to the Japanacorps, especially with their ties to other Great Dragons. Though if Celedyr were looking for additional draconic support, this could be the way to go.

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^Frosty

In Southie’s version of things, Damon had his talons into five local clubs. Building on the success of those clubs, as well as successes in other areas, including the media industry, Damon now has a piece of twenty-eight clubs all over the Beantown plex. He still doesn’t own any of them but I-Ching, Damon’s cover corp, has dropped hundreds of thousands of nuyen into these places and re-ceived millions in return. Every night he visits a few, rarely staying more than an hour at any one, so every club can count on at least one Damon visit a week, which gives all of them a boost. His visits don’t follow any discernible pattern, so even ones he doesn’t hit benefit from addi-tional traffic from customers hoping he will.

Damon’s clubs are the place to see up-and-coming music acts. Media companies flock to these places to try and out-deal the dragon, and many use our help when the deals aren’t quite sweet enough. A few of the clubs have actually hosted already-famous acts open-ing for the buddopen-ing stars. I’m sure it’s a sweet gig, since they probably make a full payday for playing a half-set.

I managed to catch 3-Meter Rock opening for Karne Adwell, the troll crooner. Interesting mix, but 3-Meter pulled in the meta crowd, mostly troll-thrash junkies, who stuck around for Karne’s set. Never have I seen so many punked out trolls belting out ballad choruses in my life. Quite a sight. Damon is good at all this, and Boston loves him.

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To bad Karne went to Pathfinder instead of signing with

Weekday Eclipse or I-Ching Entertainment. Damon doesn’t win them all.

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^Bull

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Karne’s a bad egg. Check the screamsheets from

Aztechnology and you’ll see why.

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Pyramid Watcher

His adrenaline-junkie antics continue, and the Rox hunts actually have a Matrix site now [link]. They post feeds from most of the hunts. He’s still undefeated, but there have been some close calls. A few police and mili-tary forces have even taken a crack at him with their pa-ranimal-control teams. Good practice for them, but he is a dragon, not some lone barghest.

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The close calls have all been teams with heavy

augmentation and strong magical support. The spellslingers try to jam the astral, while the speed freaks wait for the first assault and then return fire. They’re fun to watch if you have the time.

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^Sticks

Last but not least is the total eradication of any doubt that Damon is a dragon. The initial proof came when one of his clubs was attacked while he was there. He wasn’t the target, but he obviously wasn’t willing to let his

pa-trons get gunned down while he stood by and watched.

He went full dracoform, took probably fifty machine-pis-tol and SMG rounds playing dragon shield, and then knocked out half the club’s patrons, including the attack-ers, with a massive sleep spell. He covered drinks for everyone the rest of the night and canceled the rest of his club visits to stick around and talk. Since then he has revealed his dragon form a number of times. He’s been known to step out in the street and fly from club to club instead of taking his Dynamit or limo.

As for his appearance, Southie’s contact had it right.

Sky-blue belly, midnight-blue back, long alligator-like snout, split tail, and rather small for an adult western dragon, maybe ten meters snout to tail tip. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was only eight meters. Yep, that small. He still avoids spending a lot of time in his natural form for some reason, instead choosing to ap-pear in one of his many metahuman forms.

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I thought only great dragons could take metahuman form.

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^Southie

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Greats have a specific metahuman form that they earn

with their status as a Great. Adult dragons like Damon, Urubia, and Perianwyr use sorcery to appear metahuman.

I pierced Perianwyr’s masking once and found a dozen different spells stacked up on him. I’m sure that’s the trick.

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^Frosty

CELEDYR

I want to say, first and foremost, that I think Celedyr was an excellent choice as Loremaster for the dragons.

Though he’s not as personable as Dunkelzahn was, he is demonstrably more interested in engaging with metahumans than ruling them—and that to me feels like a win for us little people.

Since returning last January with the new title of Lor-emaster, Celedyr has spent almost all of his time in Bos-ton instead of Caerleon. Some speculated that he had lost his home lair, much like Hestaby. But when some in-vestigations found the Caerleon lair still full of spirits and guarded by the Knights of Rage, people realized it was still Celedyr’s. The investigators who survived sticking their noses too close to Caerleon switched up and came to Boston to find out what Celedyr was up to over here.

With NeoNET and S-K being major targets for an-ti-dragon forces, Celedyr has been more casual about appearing in public—and looking obviously comfort-able while doing so—than anyone expected. Lofwyr has been orchestrating a lot of defensive operations, but Celedyr doesn’t seem to have the same agenda—unless the Welsh dragon’s plan is to get the city of Boston to love him so much they chase off his enemies.

Between speaking events at MIT&T where he dis-cussed the new grid protocols, NeoNET’s advance-ments in electrokinetic (technomancer) understanding,

and the latest innovations being developed by NeoNET, Celedyr has gained a much “friendlier” reputation with the city. He even assumed human form to throw out the first pitch of the Red Sox season (and he’s got quite the fastball). His image boost hasn’t only been through his actions, but through the actions of his new Voice, Zoh Rothberg. An incident at Transys’ labs in Caerleon last year left Per Engstomm among the casualties. His new Voice is almost as popular in Boston as Mayor Meghan.

In fact, the pair are often the target of “Who Wore it Bet-ter,” the mindless Matrix tabloid that gets pics of celeb-rities in similar outfits and then lets the public declare who looked better. The contests between Rothberg and O’Rylan are usually close and very popular.

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Best contest of the year was in March when Zoh and

Celedyr stepped out for St. Patty’s day, and so did O’Rylan and Damon. Both pairs dressed in similar styles that screamed publicity stunt. The ladies rocked a sexy green mini-dress with shamrock-shaped sequins running diagonal stripes, while the boys both hit the town in their best Boston bad-boy jeans and designer-print dress-shirt look. The voting site crashed no less than a half-dozen times, at least twice from too many voters hitting it at once. The other crashes screamed shadowrun, which made me laugh at any runner who took that gig. Staying strong and fighting the fashion power, I guess.

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^/dev/grrl

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Laugh away. They paid well.

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^Southie

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Celedyr’s popularity has made the local Villiers supporters

a little nervous. Samantha was in town for Martin’s birthday celebration and got blasted when put up next to Zoh in a very similar black cocktail dress. Party faux pas first off, and then to get slammed on the tabloid site showed a definite change in the winds of Boston.

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^Kia

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Samantha Villiers is not a great gauge for Villiers popularity,

seeing as how she’s the ex-wife of the hometown hero.

The two of them may get along with each other, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to like her.

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^Southie

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Zoh hasn’t been seen publicly since the quarantine

started, but then again neither has Celedyr.

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^Icarus

Considering the nature of Boston’s shadowscene, the dragon’s popularity could be the calculated outcome of a sophisticated defense strategy. Any overt efforts to get at him would rattle the city, and this is a city that does not like rattles and especially dislikes whoever’s

doing the rattling. If it is his defense plan, I think Celedyr may be better at this game than Lofwyr.

In the shadows Celedyr has been keeping enough steps between him and his Johnsons that most runs never get traced back to the wyrm. He is rumored to be using Damon as Mr. Johnson, but I’m not keen on poking around in the business of two dragons at once so soon after an open hunting season. Maybe I’ll dig a little more once I’m absolutely certain the dragons are done bickering.

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That’s it? A fragging fluff piece! Arete, you

dragonboot-licking coward. I’ll give you all more.

Celedyr has been spending all his time in Boston because he needs to stay protected from anyone who would attack him directly while he desperately flails at saving that freak Eliohann/Cerberus/Neurosis. I read that Street Legends file, so I know what I’m fragging talking about. Along with all the equipment that got moved here last January, Eliohann’s body got moved as well. I know four guys who were on the Minuteman Elite Engagement Team that took the handoff from the Knights of Rage at the docks. The KoR guys actually refused to fully hand off, and the MEET guys had to let them tag along. From what I heard it was handy because the whole group got jumped before they even left the docks. Long story short, the comatose dragon made it to NeoNET’s HQ.

Slap onto that the other strange things I’ve heard

Slap onto that the other strange things I’ve heard

In document Shadowrun Lockdown (Page 38-42)