Chicago, circa 2077
Operation: Reclamation (a.k.a. Land Grab)
Chicago, once known as the Windy City, fell hard when an astral threat emerged and someone decided to detonate a tactical nuclear device downtown. This changed Chicago into Bug City for many years. Insect spirits threatened to overrun the whole Sixth World but it began and stopped with Chicago. Application of a magic eating bacteria eliminated much of the bug threat along with nearly every other dual-natured creature in the city. Chicago politicians had no choice but to establish a quarantine zone.
Containment Zone Expedition & Recovery [CZER]
CZER is a Chicago based corporation dedicated to providing the manpower and firepower required by all the other mega corporations to reclaim their assets believed long gone within the Chicago Containment Zone. Through various unknown methods this small specialty corp holds the proverbial keys to the Zone as the only officially sanctioned force allowed to operate within the Zone.
After the blast and bugs CZER formed up and hired every chummer with a gun forming their own ‘fire teams’. They leveraged associations with warlords and street gangs in the Zone to distribute supplies and keep tabs on important locations. CZER greased all the right palms to become only slightly less empowered than Lonestar within the remains of great Chicago.
CZER maintains a stable of teams to available to the highest bidder for jobs in the Zone. They provide modest living quarters, training facilities and medical services. Teams are ranked based on a profit vs expense sliding scale. The more a team makes for the company and the less they cost to maintain the higher they rank on the ladder and the broader their selection of jobs.
Client’s pay CZER for access to the stable. Then the client negotiates pay directly with the team that accepts the job. This is generally cheaper than getting official permits and allocating funds from parent corporations. It also provides a great deal of ‘Plausible Deniability’ in the event the job goes pear-shaped.
CZER provides armor, munitions, vehicles and some support personnel to each team. If the team wants to cover one or more of these expenses it can increase their standing while making them paupers at the same time. Status through the sacrifice of profit.
Most teams have four to six members to cover all the bases. Some are fewer, some are larger but this is the average size. Roles include Heavies, Faceman, Snipers, Melee Monsters, Riggers, Deckers or Technomancers and a Mage or Shaman. Those last few are often rejects from other metroplexes on the run from a spotted past, just generally down on their luck or literally damaged.
Meet Team Sigma
Not on the bottom rung but having a hard time climbing the tilted ladder, Team Sigma are a rag tag group of Runners.
- Deviant is their sniper adept; good at extreme range or in your face style combat.
- Sunshine is a combat mage with a bit of a habit.
- Moci the street sam/rigger/decker, a real jack of all trades, master of none.
- Malus is a short ranged/demolitionist street sam hailing from parts unknown.
- Finally we have Max a brawny Ork Heavy street sam with attitude.
This band of misfits has managed to fight their way up the ladder to Sigma but haven’t cracked the code for advancing beyond. Will they climb or get crowded further down?
