20 Plot Seeds for Weird Cyberpunk Games

Things are getting weird in the Sprawl. Here are 20 "weird cyberpunk" plot seeds written for Chromatic Shadows, my in-progress cyberpunk game.

(Photo by  Josh Sortino)

1. A remote warehouse is being fitted with massive saline tanks. Under the cover of night, mysterious sea creatures are being transported via truck, along with loads of bizarre electronics.
2. A series of massive prisms appear randomly in the matrix and broadcast a cycle of musical tones before vanishing. Hackers that have heard these notes become obsessed with them suffering psychotic breaks.
3. A South American ziggurat has been excavated and reconstructed atop a corporate spire. Strange lights have been seen at night hovering close above.
4. A crime syndicate is dealing a drug that causes spontaneous psychic phenomenon. A whole neighborhood is dealing with intensifying paranormal activity.
5. Enormous matte black skyscrapers are rising up from vacant lots in deep parts of the Barrens & Slags. Doors open up, and mysterious figures have been seen entering and exiting before the buildings sink back down into the ground and are gone.
6. People have gone missing, along with their whole digital history, social media, official documentation. Friends and family have forgotten who they are, except for a few. Those that remember are afraid that something is hunting them.
7. SimSense company has delved into dream recording. Widespread dream profiles have been captured and run through an algorithm--recurring patterns have been detected, images of specific locations, people and events. The patterns are accelerating at an alarming rate.
8. An alien artifact has fallen into the hands of a growing neotribal cult. Hundreds of worshipers are flocking to it, believing it to be of divine origin.
9. An arcology has sealed itself off from the outside world. They've declared themselves the church of a new "prophet in their midst" who claims to be in direct communion with an angel.
10. Rogue teams of suicide hackers have entered into drift symbiosis, projecting themselves as a “super avatar” in the matrix. They have been able to hack the most secure hosts, but are individually going insane as a result.
11. A telecom company is secretly loading stolen Egyptian and Sumerian artifacts into satellites and launching them into orbit.
12. An automated computer production facility has begun to spontaneously mass produce Goetic warding glyphs drawn onto circuit boards with silicon, solder and RAM.
13. A number of cryostasis pods from the Lunar mission disaster is discovered in an abandoned orbital habitat- several surviving team members are believed to be asleep inside, and contaminated with an alien virus. They need to be recovered.
14. An experimental energy company has trapped an unknown spiritual entity with lasers and runes. They are forcing it to open a portal to another dimension.
15. A black monolith has appeared in the matrix where the infamous Longfang CortX research host used to be. It is growing in size. Every hacker who has gotten too close is violently dumped from the matrix, and suffers debilitating neuroshock.
16. A cloning lab has gone silent. The scientists are missing and the surviving animals exhibit unusual intelligence.
17. A neurotech company is testing a new experimental “memory backup” system on a control group. Several participants are receiving memories of other lives and flashes of things that have not yet happened.
18. Drones have gone missing. In the middle of the night hundreds of drones spontaneously activate and fly off to an abandoned site deep within the Slags.
19. “Matrix suicide cults” are popping up. Groups of people networked with black market drift-tech are found jacked in and brain dead. Strange symbols are painted and scratched into their gear.
20. A“black box” energy cell is revealed to be running on nothing but a quivering mass of hair, animal teeth, and slime.