NeoScum good.
“America, 2077. Well, something like it, anyway. The future has awoken a new world of science and magic. Corporations make the rules and 'Shadowrunners' break em, doing the kind of work that you can't mention on a tax return. In Indianapolis, four outsiders meet and accept a job they aim to finish... if they ever get around to it.”
— Description for Episode 1
NeoScum is a Shadowrun actual-play and comedy podcast. It's much less technical than most actual-play podcasts, to the point that most of the dice rolls are edited out to save time, and makes use of the players improv comedy skills for both the comedy itself and the plot. It's also much more comedic than even other comedy-focused actual play podcasts, although it still has the occasional dramatic moment.
The plot so far concerns four shadowrunners who do a job together in Indianapolis and decide to stick together. Their personal goals are all pretty big-picture, so in the meantime their actions are mostly guided by who does and does not want to kill them at the moment. Given their habit of antagonizing any and all NPCs they come across and their predilection for reckless violence, the list of people who want them dead quickly grows exponentially.
Cast
- Gannon Reedy as the GM.
- Mike Migdall as Dak Rambo, human rigger.
- Blair Britt as Zenith, human decker.
- Eleni Sauvageau as Pox, elven adept.
- Casey Toney as Tech Wizard, human mage.
The show is hosted by One Shot Podcast and can be listened to on their site
, NeoScum's official site, iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify.
Tropes:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewers running below the Technopolis are big enough to maintain an underground society of Dwarves. They're also spacious enough for the NeoScum crew to walk through without issue.
- A Day in the Limelight: Episode 42 partially focuses on the various side characters while NeoScum is hiding in Aspen.
- Aerith and Bob: People named Shirley Guzman, Scott Free, and Darius Pendor share screentime with people named Squirt Purpler, Barft Vada, and Bloodbutt.
- Notably, the Aeriths outnumber the Bobs by a pretty wide margin. The ratio is pretty even with the main cast, but any background characters probably fall into 'Aerith' territory.
- Ambiguously Bi / Ambiguously Gay: Most of the cast have had their moments by now. Particularly Dak; in the first episode he mentions having "a lotta girly mags... some boy mags... some, uh, robo mags..." hidden somewhere in Xanadu.
- Dak is eventually confirmed bisexual when he explains how he knows a ski instructor in Aspen.
- Amnesiac Hero: Zenith knows he can't remember much of anything about his past, although he's recently unlocked some of those memories. Seems they might have been blocked for a reason.
- Anti-Magical Faction: This version of the Shadowrun universe plays this up much more than the source material. The government would routinely round up and kill magic users; while things aren't quite so bad now, there's still persistent anti-magic bias.
- In Denver, Lone Star effectively acts as this as they're locked in conflict with the WAB, a pro-magic political group that controls the city's center.
- Attack Its Weak Point: The Triremes, two massive ships on treads used in the Living Race, each have a marked red vent at the front, designed to destroy or incapacitate the Trireme in spectacular fashion if someone manages to attack the inside of it.Gannon: Fun fact about the Triremes, they make 'em easy to blow up because it's fun to watch.
- Berserk Button: Big Marco absolutely hates the nickname Lil' Marco. Dak's insistence on this name is part of why he eventually attempts to kill NeoScum.
- Whenever Pox is in contact with her father. She doesn't get physically violent to anyone else, but she responds to anything he has to say by reminding him that she plans on killing him the next time they meet.
- Messing with Dak's "sister's kids". Z took Max to the technomancers in Denver, something Max was actually going along with willingly, and Dak almost attacked him for it.
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Dak apparently eats raw pizza dough pretty regularly. He claims it's due to his trucker lifestyle, and that pizza dough is considered a rare delicacy due to his work. Tech's in on this too since he came running when he heard they had pizza dough for breakfast.
- Blister... drinks gasoline. This has yet to be explained, and may never be.
- Blood Sport: The illegal pit fights in Indianapolis are appropriately violent. The local Death Race, on the other hand, is actually planned in advance, so it's probably safer than the pit fights.
- The Living Race has a pretty consistent 90% mortality rate.
- Carnival of Killers: A good chunk of Denver, apparently. After Pox's father put a bounty on NeoScum a ridiculous number of themed assassins start coming after the crew. Only a few actually manage to get into direct fights with them before they leave the city.
- Code Name: Being shadowrunners, all four of the main cast primarily use fake names.
- Played with in Dak Rambo's case; at one point he says he picked it himself (based on that Rambo, no less) but he also refers to it as his real name.
- While Zenith's name is almost certainly invented (and probably derived from his Z-shaped scar), it's unclear whether or not he actually has a real name. If he does, he might not even remember it.
- Dak has a massive list of code names, all of which are ridiculous but allegedly people he's met before. He will use any of them at the drop of a hat.
- The entire NeoScum crew gets secondary fake names in addition to their real ones when they go undercover in the pit fighting ring.
- Cool Car: Xanadu, Dak's big rig. It gets outfitted with a number of security measures, including a robot arm on the top that can hold and fire an Ares Predator.
- Dating Catwoman: Dak Rambo and Shirley Guzman. Dak is the catwoman in the situation; Shirley works for Lone Star and would rather Dak get out of his line of work, both for his own safety and her sense of morality.
- Death from Above: The Triremes get one massive artillery cannon each. The name of these weapons? Mother of God Cannons.
- Decoy Getaway: Dak upgrades his truck with a shifting license plate, then completely undermines that decision by getting 'NeoScum' painted on the side. This situation is rectified by convincing the garage owner to paint 'NeoScum' on every truck they service for the next few weeks. It's unclear how well this actually worked.
- Evil Gloating: Most of the crew's antagonists get some of this in at some point or another. Usually over comms, so it's not like they could directly kill the crew anyway, but the few times they show up in person it doesn't really end well.
- Blint Klaunoff tries to play this straight. He sets up a dramatic entrance, only to be interrupted by Dak taking potshots at where he might be. When he finally pops out from behind something, he gets taken out immediately.
- Played with in Beans' case. He'd only had shouting matches and the occasional threat at gunpoint with Dak before trying to actually fight him, so he's caught completely off guard (along with Gannon for that matter) when Dak responds to his taunts by pulling out his gun and shooting him in the face.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Van Ghoul is a ghoul who drives a van. Lance Jouster jousts with a lance.
- Broken Glass, a stage show currently playing in the Technopolis, consists entirely of a robot arm throwing and breaking various glass objects.
- Family of Choice: The NeoScum crew eventually starts referring to themselves as a family. Dak even asks if they'd consider themselves his honorary sister's kids; Tech and Pox accept, though Z declines.
- Fan Community Nickname: Scummers, a portmanteau of NeoScum and chummers.
- Fantastic Drug: Aside from the fake drugs Shadowrun already has, NeoScum brings crange and Dak Fuel into the mix.
- Crange is to other drugs what crack is to coffee. It's bad enough that when the Hot Doggers start producing it, the other gangs declare war on them.
- Dak Fuel is Dak's own creation; a mixture of grain alcohol, powerade, habanero and ghost peppers, and an indefinite number and variety of hard drugs. It got Tech addicted to the abstract concept of drugs. And one of the two 100-gallon fuel tanks on Dak's truck is full of the stuff.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The NeoScum crew flee Big Marco in the truck he repaired and upgraded for them.
- Three would-be shadowrunners tried to cash in on the bounty on NeoScum. As they tried to act like room service to enter their room, they woke up the owners of the motel, got into an argument, and one of them threw a spell that knocked back everyone in the hallway, allowing NeoScum (who had been pointing weapons at the door anyway) to escape.
- Iconic Outfit: Everyone in the NeoScum crew. To the point that they all have a negative trait that means they're more recognizable because of their signature looks.
- Dak's outfit is never specified in too much detail, but there are two constants. One is that he's covered in tattoos. The other is that he always wears one of a number of hats. They're all trucker hats/baseball caps that he got for free because they were misprints (i.e. a hat that says "my eyes are up here" and points up) or endorse failed political candidates. As a result, he has crates full of hats, and seems to wear a different one at every opportunity.
- Zenith's outfit also isn't specified in full, but he has a lot of cybernetics, including an ocular drone in the place of his left eye and a Z-shaped scar over it.
- Pox wears a very large coat that is covered in pockets. It's so notable that it's her namesake. It's also big enough to unfold into a tent if need be. Her white hair doesn't help much either, but seeing as people in Shadowrun use plenty of hair dye it's not quite so noticeable.
- While everyone else's outfit is risky for blending in more because of how out of place they look than for being something people might recognize, Tech Wizard follows this trope completely. He only ever wears the wizard robes his parents owned... which look like stereotypical wizard robes with moons and stars and pointed hat. On top of this, he plays a character on a childrens TV show wearing that same outfit, making him even more recognizable. It also doesn't help that anti-magic propaganda frequently uses that same stereotypical "disney wizard" outfit to portray wizards.
- Insistent Terminology: Big Marco insists on being called Big Marco. And you'd better not call him Little Marco.
- The Literalist Society of Peoria lives by this.
- Dak never uses the words 'niece' or 'nephew', instead saying 'sister's kid'. This is actually his term for his own children who he's hiding his identity from. It's unclear if he also calls any real niblings this, although his family having died in a plane crash would suggest he doesn't have any.
- Ironic Name: Scott Free. He's dragged around as NeoScum's hostage for a couple of days.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Oddly enough for an actual-play podcast, everyone. Usually the GM, of course, but whenever there's a large number of people with specific personality the rest of the cast will join in voicing them. Most notable with the pit fighters. Also, if things seem to be going too slow or they spot an opening, one or more of the cast might chime in as a bystander walking in on whatever's happening right now.
- Mole Men: A community/gang of Dwarves live in the sewers below the Technopolis. They've developed their own societal structure, with a group called the Wizard Bastards in charge of a group called the Death Bastards.
- Noodle Incident: Although everyone in NeoScum has various background information they only vaguely reference, Dak in particular constantly does this. Given his personality, it's no surprise he gets himself into lots of ridiculous situations.
- One of the biggest incidents is whatever Dak and Tech did to earn the murderous wrath of apparently every gang in Chicago. All that is known is that the word 'genocide' has been used to describe it, and that the gangs not only want Dak's head but anyone associated with him. The incident was eventually played through in several crossover episodes with the One Shot podcast, but it's still never been explained in the main show itself.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Pox and Tech Wizard are the only two NeoScum members whose given names are known, but they both use their pseudonyms to the point that they've effectively replaced their original names.
- Only Mostly Dead: Beans, maybe. Sort of. It's complicated.Dr. Stopps: "Well, I guess it depends on your definition of alive..."
- Paper-Thin Disguise:
- When taking out the fighting circuit, the crew disguises themselves as three fighters and their manager. Their disguises are iffy at best, and only really work because they're all new in town and nobody's looking for them.
- Dak buys a shifting license plate for Xanadu, allowing him to throw off anyone trying to track them by license plate number. He then has their logo spray-painted on the side of the trailer.
- Parental Abandonment: Tech's parents have apparently been dead most of his life. They were shot by military personnel during the effort to detain and segregate magic users. The only known blood relative he has left is his grandmother who is on life support in a nursing home.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Dak guesses the password to a friend's computer on his first try simply by knowing his favorite sports team.
- Quirky Miniboss Squad: The pit fighters look like this, but ultimately don't fight the party. Not until Big Marco sends four of them after the crew, anyway.
- Later on, the wyvern hunters and their CFO client. Although they're mostly quirky in the sense that they don't really have any business being bounty hunters.
- Road Trip Plot: Turns into this after Dak suggests simply running away from their problems in Chicago and Indianapolis and going to Los Angeles. Starting Episode 12, the story has been following them driving cross-country in Xanadu.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: Apparently, this kind of outfit was traditional magical attire, but it's fallen out of favor since anti-magic propaganda consistantly portrays wizards as wearing them.
- Rogue Agent: Albeit not really having anything to do with your typical idea of 'agents', the rogue truckers are truckers who either broke away from or always defied the League of Honored Truckers. Dak officially becomes one of these after killing Beans, although he'd pretty much always been one in spirit.
- Signature Team Transport: Xanadu, Dak's big rig. It even has the team logo on the side.
- Space "X": Not space specifically, but the podcast has a tendency to add words like 'neo' or 'cyber' onto things (or people) that already exist. This can sometimes lead to redundant adjectives, like with Neo-New Mexico.
- Super Serum / Psycho Serum: Dak fuel. It's some kind of mixture of drugs, alcohol, and energy drinks that Dak makes. After Tech drank some, they had to figure out what it actually does. They settled on some immediate bonuses with a dice roll to determine whether you also get a hit of one of the hard drugs.
- Apparently, half of Xanadu's gas tanks are full of this stuff. Plus a little ladle for drinking it.
- Super-Soldier: This being Shadowrun, there are plenty of super soldier programs. The most relevant is Legacy of Adam; they created Z.
- Tank Goodness: The Triremes used in the Living Race are effectively massive ships on treads.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. There are therapists, but most people can't afford them. Instead, Chatriks exist; they act as on-site therapists at businesses in case of customer breakdowns. They have cyberware that loads sentences a therapist might say in a given situation (plus advertisements). They're cheaper than therapists and attend to people on an on-call basis instead of arranging sessions.
- Title Drop: An old lady shouting at the crew called them '...new scum... neo scum!'. They later found her spray-painting a stylized 'NeoScum' tag on Xanadu and liked it so much they kept it as their name and logo.
- Tomorrowland: The Technopolis of Neo-New Mexico is incredibly advanced. After Silicon Valley collapsed (literally) during the Awakening, the tech industry moved to New Mexico. Deckers look on at the city with a mixture of awe and suspicion.
- Treasure Chest Cavity: Averted. After killing a number of rats, Pox decides to cut them open so she can look for treasure. All she finds are rat guts. This reaches its logical conclusion when she finds a shaman who controls rats and cuts him open to search for treasure.
- Verbal Weakness: Dak apparently has a kill phrase. He doesn't know what it is, and the one person who did is dead, but it's still active and if anyone says it he explodes.
- Wacky Racing: Death Racing involves a lot of heavy vehicle modification (they even let in a 16-wheeler) and is apparently a sort of mix between professional wrestling in theatrics and illicit street-racing in practicality. Despite the name, the results are planned in advance by the organizers.
- The Living Race is conducted between two teams of twenty on giant war machines called Triremes. The survivors of the winning Trireme are then split into two teams themselves and so on and so forth. In contrast to Death Racing, the Living Race has a 90% fatality rate and is apparently not pre-planned at all.
- What If?: The first live show is a scenario that shows what would have happened if NeoScum had investigated the sewer line at the bottom of the crater in the Wad/Wab.
- Webcomic Time: The pacing varies, but occasionally slows to a crawl in real-time.
- We Can Rebuild Him: Happened as part of Good Boy's backstory. After Edmund's run-in with an explosive disco ball, there was just enough brain material left over that Dr. Jocko could put him into a new body. Except the body was a dog with cybernetic legs and a gun in his mouth.
- It's revealed that Beans is getting this treatment from Big Marco. Of course, the amount of "rebuilding" necessary was initially minimal since he'd only been shot twice, but Dr. Stopps felt compelled to go further.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The WAB (Wizard and Adept Brotherhood) is definitely correct in their views considering the government's tendency to round up and systematically murder magic-users. But since peaceful protests don't seem to work on the UCAS, they've taken territory in Denver and plan to assassinate the local UCAS representative and infamous traitor, Faeglin Moros. They eventually pull it off with a suicide bomber at his heavily-attended party.
