ORIGINS
Don’t think for a minute you are an assassin because you are a killer. That’s just an ingredient. An assassin sets out with a goal of killing someone specific. You can gun down all the rent-a-cops at a facility you want. That makes you a goon. You set out to zero a mark, plan a whole op based around their death, and execute the task. That is an assassin. No prisoners. A killer does not an assassin make. But it’s a start.
Anyone can fall into the life. Anyone who has the op- portunity, anyway. Staying in requires a talent for death. Truth be told, it doesn’t take very much skill to kill an- other metahuman. Right now, there are probably fifty people around you who you could murder, even if you weren’t a runner. What is stopping them? And what’s stopping you?
Everyone has a limit. Everyone has a price. If your limit is low enough, if your price can be met, then you’re willing to kill someone. So what is your price?
If the price comes in terms of nuyen, rather than honor or some other abstract concept, you’ve got the right mindset. An assassin is out to serve a cause of one brand or another, most famously the fattening of their credstick.
Let me start from the top down. The best killers, on average, are former government and megacorp ops. Black on black, trained by the best, becoming sharper with every generation. When they go freelance, it usu-
shadowrunning, but there’s better money in kick art, and they can handle the heat. Plus, they’re the most likely to have cutting-edge cyberware. They represent a standard of professionalism you almost can’t find anywhere else: top-line talent blended with paranoid motivation.
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Personal bias. Before Blackwing started playing Tír politics as a noble, he worked black ops for the Star Chamber.>
Frosty>
Whereas now he’s a member who runs the black ops. Guess there really is no limit to what you can achieve when you’re an elf in the Tír, huh?>
ThornA step down is the daytripper. You can split these into two schools: the shadow op who sidelines into as- sassination now and again, and the specialist who is only called in for specific jobs. A sideliner doesn’t have the kind of reputation to back up regular work, but that can help, since no one sees them coming, and their skillset can give them the edge in approaching a job from a new angle. The specialist, on the other hand, builds their ca- reer around a specific kind of hit. Nostro, a German dwarf, specializes in accidents that involve the mark vanishing. No corpse, no trace. They just poof off the map, forev- er. Ivchenko, before he got taken down in the ’60s, used blood magic to do terror jobs. Ire did the same, come to think of it. Bluebeard only does women. One of my per- sonal favorites is Marisol, who works exclusively in hotels. Any kind of hit, but only if it takes place in a hotel. That cracks me up. She does very well for herself.
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This suggests that you see shadowrunners as less impressive than assassins. Am I misreading the tone?>
Slamm-0!>
Are dedicated assassins better at deathdealing than shadowrunners? Yes, very often. I’m sure anyone who specializes in one type of work is better at thatexclusive area of expertise than those who cross-train. But shadowrunning is a fantastic way to build the skills that help in wetwork, especially considering how often assassins choose to work alone.
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Blackwing>
And no one said it can’t work the other way, either. Assassins may be called in to do other shadow ops, sometimes for the reputation, other times because they have the guaranteed talent to create a final solution to obstacles.>
Red>
Or because they are in someone’s pocket, and they aren’t given a choice.>
Blackwing.>
Ahhh. I always wondered why you were after that statue …>
Red>
Wait, you too?>
ElijahThe bottom rung are the street-level hitters. The nor- mal image is the gutterpunk who shivs someone for fif- ty nuyen or a hit of betameth. Some regular assassins get their start down there, carrying off small jobs and working their way from hustling for drug dealers and in- surance scammers to the midrange. Some few have the right outlook; they start learning all the tricks and an- gles of the trade as they go, from the ground up. These ones, if they survive, can become exceptionally skilled. The dark side is that they often carry some baggage with them, often without knowing it. What’s more, lots of these little fish get pulled into the mob, stuck in the limbo where they can never leave, but never advance. Not the worst work, if you can get it, but you’ll never do any other kind for the rest of your life.
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Again, Blackwing’s arrogance makes him dismiss certain elements. A lot of hitmen aren’t recruited or loaned out of military service and trained to be killers by an agency. In fact, most assassins begin at the lower levels. He’s right that many of them become attached to criminal families, but that doesn’t mean they can’t advance.>
Red Anya>
Plenty of hitters for the Mob are the ones advancing. Remember Don Biggio in Seattle?>
Sunshine>
How do assassins get recruited out of the army, anyway?>
Chainmaker>
More often than not it’s a matter of moral flexibility. In-depth psychological profiles and observation by recruiters during and after boot camp isolate candidates for advanced training. Natural talent isn’t a necessity, as skills can be wired or trained, and there are enough ways of killing a metahuman that almost anyone fit to be a soldier can be made to be an assassin.>
Fianchetto>
He’s right, though they’re willing to make exceptions regarding inherent psychological adaptation if the potential recruit is extraordinarily gifted at what they do. If you’ve got a sniper in the Green Berets who can move and shoot like a ghost, they’ll find work for you. Depending on the individual, this can include a lot of selective crafting of circumstances. Some soldiers find themselves under a kind of media filter, propaganda boosting their patriotism along with their hatred of projected enemies. Others are kept in the dark or lied to. This is avoided as much as possible, given the risk of unforeseen factors compromising the op or, worse, an asset going rogue.>
Thorn>
Why not just pop a chip and make the perfect killer in a can?>
Turbo Bunny>
Lack of operational flexibility. A chip can make a fine factory worker, and under the right circumstances even a clumsy sleeper agent can get the job done, but an assassin needs to be able to adapt and think on their feet, and a personafix can only do so much in the face of so many variables and stimuli.>
Fianchetto>
Slaves make poor assassins of anyone but their masters.>
Man-of-Many-Names>
I believe I cover that later.>
BlackwingMORALITY
There is a popular trope of the “noble assassin” in the sims. The one who only kills really bad people who de- serve to die, or at least has a change of heart before killing a living saint.
It’s about ninety-eight percent bull.
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Hey, Bull, I->
Slamm-0!>
It’s not funny enough to bother finishing the joke, is it?>
Bull>
…no. No it isn’t.>
Slamm-0!Most people who are assassins are creatures of in- finite justification. They know there are other assassins out there who will take the job if they don’t. A death mark is just someone’s number being up. One way or another, a kick artist is going to make a kill and collect the bill. Might as well be them.
That remaining two percent? Killers with a heart of gold, or so they tell themselves. “Only really bad peo- ple,” they say, and they go after the hard targets: crimi- nals, protected corpers, corrupt cops, made men, meta- human traffickers, etc. And they end up dead pretty quick. Because those targets have friends who are linked into the same community as the hitman, and they are