Sprawl Site Generator- CorpSec

The perverse jewel of corporate opulence at the elite heart of Metroplex. The CorpSec is a locus of human power on earth; a hyperelite ecosystem for the super-rich. Glittering chrome spires stab to the heavens, rising from a grid of concrete barriers and guarded security checkpoints. Cavernous luxury apartment suites look down to the miniature world below. Every luxury and pleasure known to man is here for the taking, if you can afford it. Those who can't seldem make it past the razor wire barricades.

 

Roll or choose elements from the following list of random tables to quickly generate varied sites within the CorpSec. Designed for Chromatic Shadows but compatible with any other cyberpunk/urban fantasy game.

 

Corporate Sector Random Tables

1. Security Zone- Chainlink and razor wire buffer zone of redundant security checkpoints lead in and out of corp sec. Milispec officers command rigorous ID scanner verification hubs. Drones monitor from above. Vehicles are subject to thorough search by scan & sniffer bots.
2. Lux Villages- Ultramodern glass and steel atriums connect by tube line elevators and transport hubs to cavernous subterranean “villages” filled with luxury restaurants, boutique stores and niche entertainment venues. A hangout spot for hyper rich teenagers.
3. Corp Spires- Piercing steel and glass towers where the execs conduct business like gods within their boardrooms.
4. Atrium Moderna- Glass pyramids and concrete rotundas filled with interactive AR installation art, and ultramodern sculpture.
5. Nordic Tower- Massive vertical downhill ski resort and winter sports complex. Artificial snow all year round.
6. Safari Acres- Menagerie with genetically regenerated extinct animals in a recreated environment. Cuddle a behaviorally modified tiger, or hunt a synthetic rhino.
7. Cloud Casino- Luxury hotels and gambling tower complex perched high in the clouds. Glass and chrome spires interconnected by high speed tube elevators and a fleet of private gyrocopter livery cabs.
8. Aquarium - Underwater luxury hotel suites built beneath the lake. Glass bubbles look out to artificial coral reefs swept in laser lights.
9. Executive Suites- Soaring high above the district. Contains hundreds of open plan apartments and condos. Slanted cavernous ceilings with floor to ceiling glass windows.
   
10. The Caverns- Multi-lane underground highway threading below corpsec. Connects to every major public or commercial parking area.
11. The Cathedral- Soaring gothic edifice, behind tall metal fence. Old blackened stones reinforced with steel scaffolding, starkly contrast the hypermodern structures all around. Building is old, and in disrepair. Mostly ignored, and used for under attended religious services, and ironic photo ops.
12. The Gardens- Sprawling multi-tiered complex of glass and steel tracery. Walkways wind through carefully manicured hydroponic gardens and park areas. Birds flutter about. Environment is climate controlled, roaring air scrubbers filter for atmospheric toxins.
13. Gyrocab Livery Docks- Elevated concrete platforms where gyrocabs and gyrolimos launch and dock. Nearby garages where vehicles are parked between routes.
14. The Arena- Massive stadium enclosed with faceted geodesic roof. 200 foot holoprojections above advertise the next corp sponsored concert or sports event.
15. Micro Parking Unit- Retractable automated micro parking unit. Cars are pulled into small kiosk, where service unit rises from underground area. Robotic arms slide cars into storage slots, that are then lowered back into the ground.
16. Hospital- Sprawling ultra modernist city block sized complex. Organic shaped buildings interconnected by numerous glass elevator tubes,bridges and automated walkways. Punctuated with large faceted domes and twisting lozenge shaped towers.
17. Construction Site- City block cordoned off with fencing. Massive partially built skyscraper, draped with scaffolding. Cranes tower above. Crab drones scuttle up and down the height carrying construction material in their pincers.
18. Police Barrack- City block sized brutalist structure. Composed of concrete slabs and wedges cut with slatted windows and skylights. Massive atrium of bulletproof glass emits a multistory holoprojection of the rotating “police shield” outward toward the public.
19. The Canals- Artificial waterways carve through the hotel district. Numerous narrow bridges cross over them. Luxury gondola drones drift past schools of designer koi fish. At night the laser buoys are lit, filling the waters with pulsing neon light.
20. Waterfront Village- Dome enclosed park-habitat, restaurants, and ultra modernist performing art center

Structural Qualities

1. Brutalist concrete slab
2. Steel web tracery
3. Twisting geometric
4. Multi tiered ziggurat
5. Narrow piercing spire
6. Suspension bridge
7. Faceted glass/ crystal
8. Mirrored chrome
9. Pure marble
10. Extruded concrete modules
11. Geometric relief ornamentations
12. Translucent tiles that modulate color

Details

1. Contracting crew on robotic scaffolding
2. Fashion shoot. Exotic models posing on a nearby architectural detail. Drone camera swarms hovering nearby.
3. Convoy of black cars with tinted glass, heavily armed security detail scanning area
4. Outdoor political rally or fundraiser. Gathered crowd around a pop up stage. AR/ holographic projections towering overhead.
5. Parties dining in glass booths suspended above the street.
6. Large pack of tethered dogs being led along sidewalk by several hovering scooper-drones
7. Nannies pushing high tech baby pods (anti-grav, A/V augmented climate controlled acrylic bubble)
8. Landing module/ package delivery kiosk for courier drones.
9. Protesters crowded outside barricades, squaring off against riot cops
10. Medical team responding to emergency
    
11. Paramilitary police unit blocking area, checking ID signatures
12. Pedestrians in personal inflatable bubbles

Cyberpunk Textures

1. Projection screen mounted to the side of a multistory building advertising plastic surgery
2. Atmospheric sheltering kiosk for emergency oxygen and air filtration
3. Solar panels cover a city block/ roof of building
4. Drone surveillance in slow synchronized formation
5. Towering 3D hologram advertising projections
6. 1000 foot telecom tower built upon nearby concrete pad/ roof of building. Lights blink through the smog above.
7. Colossal modernist sculpture. Slowly gyrating/ kinetic elements
8. Glass enclosed automatic sidewalks/ self-climbing stairs
9. Retractable access doors leading to underground area
10. High speed tube elevators along side of building
11. Helocopter pad
12. Light module, blasting a thick beam of colored laser into the night

Chromatic Shadows Faction: SENTINEL

A Lamp in the Dark 

The Sentinel network is small, and local, but its members are bound to a common cause: To find and protect people touched by the Weird, to keep watch for occult events and enemy factions, and to fight back. Many of its members are ex cyber-runners, who have defected from the life of exploitation and violence. Now they are hunted by their former employers. Sentinel has the infrastructure and resources to keep them safe.

 

• There are safe houses throughout the sprawl. Medics, food banks, credit advances if needed. Places to lay low if the heat is on. Sentinel understands your obsession with the Weird, because they’ve gone through it too. They might not have the answers, but they’ve got  your back. They can help you talk to the right people and look in the right places. And when you’re ready, Sentinel is looking for street operators like you to push back against the darkness.

• Sentinel’s agents are called upon to engage in covert acts of infiltration and retaliation against its occult enemies: namely the Megacorps, the Hand of Moloch & the Void Cult. Sentinel agents are scouts, spies, and sometimes soldiers. They must be prepared for activation and ready to run investigation and information gathering operations on a moment’s notice. 

• This information is passed along to Sentinel leadership, and sometime that’s enough. But many times, heavy operators are called to upon to take direct, violent action. These agents delve straight into the heart of the occult machinery--to take out a black site, a secret lab, or a cult infestation. Mission by mission, Sentinel pushed back against the enemy, spreading light in the dark corners of the Sprawl swallowed by the shadow war.

• Sentinel must take pans to conceal its activities and protect its agents if it wants to survive. Sentinel organization works through local Sprawl or district based cells called a “Watch”, Each Watch has little to no communication between each other. Any information sharing is mediated by Sentinel leadership, an anonymous group known only as ‘The Parliament’. This decentralized network is the first line of defense against their enemies. It limits who or what any individual agent knows and shields the whole organization from reprisal, should they be found out. 

• Watches are usually no more than a dozen or so loosely affiliated street operators in any given district. A  lieutenant known as the Wickie dispenses missions and investigations to individual agents, and channels information and field reports directly to the Parliament. As a rule, Wickies only ever interact with the Parliament within the Grid. Missions and information sharing is only done within secure node-constructs, and never at the same address twice.

• The Parliament themselves appear as and heavily encrypted personas, with deep access to a vast data network, and some mastery over Grid architecture. Some speculate Parliament members might be highly placed corporate officers, acting as double agents. Others believe they aren’t human at all, but rather a group of powerful, sympathetic AI entities. Stranger still is the persistent rumor that the Parliament are in fact.the mind-networks of the original Matrix drift teams. They have awakened from their stasis vats, and are now secretly plotting to undermine the work of their captors.
  

Chromatic Shadows Faction- THE VOID CULT

A Ravenous Darkness draws close, hovering in a spiraling iris. Eldritch energies hemorrhage through the wounds in reality made by man's hubris. The change has begun—prepare the crooked path. Those who usher its coming will be rewarded, and transformed. Every one else is a tool to be exploited or an obstacle to be destroyed.

A Corrupting Influence

Void Cult cells infect the sprawl like a malignant wound, their corruption spreads from the margins inward. The cult’s origin is shrouded in mystery--the member’s  identities and digital footprint are traceless. All attachments to the false world burned to cold cinders. With demonstrable power and dark prophetic authority, the Void Cult draws fanatical members into its ranks.

Claiming Nexus Points

Guided by hypnogogic omens, the Void Cult is spurned to seek out and claim Nexus Points—interstitial places in the sprawl where the skin of reality has worn thin. These sites are always tainted by some terrible trauma-- fallout from the Shadow War, a human tragedy, an environmental disaster. Here the cult performs rituals and hoards artifacts in order to commune with the Outside.

Artifact Hunters

The cult scours the sprawl for occult assets through their expanding secret networks. Artifact fragments and hypertech are relentlessly pursued, often in direct competition with the megacorps. The cult draws upon these artifacts to deepen their connection to the Outside, defend their territory and to destroy their enemies.

Eldritch Scars & Occult Gifts

Cult members are rewarded with Eldritch Scars—marks of favor from the Outside. The number of scars a cultist carries determines their rank within the hierarchy. Every initiated cultist carries a sign of corruption.  Black pits for eyes, boils that never heal, webbed hands, rubbery skin, shark-like teeth,  the pallor of the grave—these energies over time will overshadow a cultist, and subsume their humanity. A cultist gains a number of extra dice to all intimidation tests equal to their number of scars, and suffer an equal penalty to any tests involving empathy or appearance.

As cultist gains scars and rise within the hierarchy they also manifest “occult gifts”—terrifying powers fueled by the eldritch energies that permeate their being.

Dark Metamorphosis

Certain rare individuals are warped into something other than human. This “final gift” of the void,  is considered by the cult to be a true rebirth. A metamorphosis that brings them fully into the presence of the ravenous darkness.

Atavistic Saints

These “blessed ones” are atavistic cannibals, reduced to a state of perpetual hunger and alien malice. They never leave the nexus points. Blessed Ones are fanatically guarded by the flock, and continually gorged on the flesh of living victims. 

 

Cult Lairs

Void Cultists regard nexus points as sacred places to be defended at all cost. Nexus Points tend to be marginal spaces--buildings or underground spaces typically found in the Barrens or the Slags. As much as possible, the cult will live in these spaces. Acolytes sleep and eat in spartan, communal chambers, whereas the high priests claim private quarters.  The epicenter of outside energy is always reserved as the cult’s “inner sanctum”. These places become horrifying ritual chambers adorned with bleak, occult iconography. Here the gibbering “blessed ones” can be found skulking in the shadows near the bloodstained altars consecrated to blasphemous eldritch entities. The cult’s artifacts are held securely in these ritual chambers. Any given cult has between 1-3 minor or medium tier artifacts.

CULT HEIRARCHY

POSTULATES have no scars, and await full initiation. They don’t yet live at the Nexus Points, and their participation in the cult’s activities are limited until they have proven themselves. They still have identities and act as the necessary intermediary to the normal world that the cult has forsaken. (Postulates use any tier 3 or lower NPC stat block and have no Occult Gifts.)

ACOLYTES have 1-2 scars. They are the rank and file cult members, living in cenobitic community within the Nexus Points.They observe vows of silence and obedience, answering individually to the High Priest. Their lives follow a rigid pattern of ritual, work, &  meditation. Acolytes act as elite operatives of the cult when the need arises. Upon receiving their 3rd scar an acolyte is prepared for the priesthood, and the responsibility of founding their own cell. (Acolytes have 1 Occult gift.)
 

HIGH PRIESTS have 3-5 scars. They are the spiritual leaders of the cult, and the top of the hierarchy. They command the flock, lead the rituals, and have exclusive rights over any artifacts the cult may have acquired. (High Priests have 2-3 Occult gifts.)

BLESSED ONES have 6 or more scars, and have fully metamorphosed into bestial subhumans. They can not speak except in the tongue of the abyss, have little more than cunning animal intelligence, and suffer a perpetual cannibalistic hunger. They exist only to feast upon their victims, and worship at the black altar of their eldritch gods. (Blessed Ones have 4 occult gift.)

ELDRITCH SCARS

Roll or choose from the following table to determine the Eldritch Scars that warp the being of a Void Cult member. Use these scars as prompts to derive the final inhuman form that the cult’s Blessed Ones might take.

1. Webbed hands
2. Rubbery loose flesh
3. Eyes like black pits
4. Bestial double speech
5. Needle like teeth
6. Vestigial appendage
7. Corpse-like pallor
8. Balding in scabrous patches
9. Tumorous growths/ postules
10. Hands warped into talons or pincers
11. Coarse black hair covers body
12. Animalistic muzzle
13. Long, ape-like arms
14. Body slick with cold slime
15. Patches of translucent skin
16. Wriggling tubular growths
17. Ridges and spines on  limbs and body
18. Large tusks or fangs
19. Lamprey mouth
20. Extra fingers and toes

 

Chromatic Shadows Faction: Hand of Moloch

The Hand of Moloch are emerging power players in the Shadow War. This highly secretive cabal of wealthy hyper-elites, are obsessed with immortality, and the occult. They will take any obscene measures to extend their wicked lives and increase their reach of power. The megacorps, often dismiss them as "eccentric gentry", but increasingly, conflicts of interest run hot. In these cases a cyberrunner team might be called up to infiltrate a Hand compound, in order to perform espionage, wetworks, or relieve them of a contested asset.

     

• Sect of elite, enormously wealthy, occult obsessed decadent hedons. Many come from “old money” families. They are bankers, investors, corporate board members, and wealthy philanthropists.
• They believe their history, wealth and genetic lines place them above the mortal cruft as “superior beings”. They seek nothing less than the keys to immortality, and the prerogative to revel in the most decadent and debased pleasures imaginable. They want to control the world, because it is owed to them. They are gods on earth, unconstrained by laws, morals and material need. Soon death itself will be defeated.
• The inner circle consists of impossibly rich ancients kept alive for two centuries through genetic engineering, organ replacement, cybernetic implantation, etc.
• In secure facilities, they keep stockpiles of clones in suspended animation. Adult clones in the peak of their physical health are kept in suspension vats for the purposes of organ harvesting, and body replacement. Cloned children are raised in highly secretive boarding school until they reach adulthood when they will be put into the vats.
• A branch of the Hand seeks the means to upload consciousness into a digital matrix. They have already come close to perfecting AI simulations of their personalities, but the actual “transference of consciousness” still eludes them. Shadow War artifacts are of particular interest in this regard. They believe that some alien “canister” like devices from the moon and elsewhere might hold the key.
• They exist above the laws of men and corporations, but will use these institutions to further their own agendas.They siphon off occult assets from the corps, or through their own networks. They also employ sorcery, but possess a shallow and incomplete understanding. The Typhonists take pains to protect their knowledge. What the Hand does with their occult assets and minor sorcery they exert influence toward their own agendas, which are usually insular, personal, obscene, & criminally weird.
• They have occult ritual pageants, elaborate masquerade balls, where they engage in sex/ drug orgies, and sometimes human sacrifice. Costumes, masks, and archetypal enactments of their mythology is a component of their rituals
• Many of these parties center around the selling and trading of “dolls”. Human trafficking rings provide men and women who are mentally conditioned with implants and drugs for  obedience. Cybersurgeons perform hormone augmentation and surgery upon them to make them perfect physical specimens. These dolls are docile, compliant & willing servants. They can be reprogrammed for certain behavior profiles (using headchips) as desired.
• The Hand's base of operations are mostly in the Fortress Estates, where large ancient complexes are built in seclusion behind electric fences,15’ foot hedges and state of the art security systems. Sometimes on large yachts out to sea.
• These locations are Faraday cages, information cannot be broadcast from within them, without the express permission of the admin. No external AR or Grid connection. On site servers operate a private host/ AR node network, which would need to be tapped/ hacked from within for infiltration.
  

Crafting Items from Monster Parts

The following table is a list of 20 powerful items that can be crafted from monster body parts. It is written with my acid-fantasy 'City of Calyx' D&D setting in mind, but it's suitable for many other old school adventure game systems and settings.

In the wilderness beyond Calyx, beasts both both alien and terrible stalk the crimson steppe.  Merchants and loose lipped adventurers speak of creatures warped by aeons of arcane fallout, and of the magical bounty to be carved from their dead flesh. Monster bones and organs are sought after, and command a high ransom of gold at the Calyx Bazaar. In the hands of a skilled craftman, these regents can be carefully formed into items capable of strange and powerful effects.

 

 

Roll on the following table to determine what monster part can be harvested from a magical beast and crafted into a usable item.

1. Bones, talons, teeth- crafted into arrow clubs, blades, arrow tips & spear heads. Grants additional to hit bonus, cause extra damage
2. Pheromone glands- grants a bonus to ability to intimidate or persuade
3. Strong hide- resistant certain types of damage (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, etc)
4. Stomach acid- highly corrosive to a certain substance it touches (metal, flesh, stone, wood, glass, etc.)
5. Gut- craft into powerful bowstring for increased firing rate, stronger & more accurate shots.
6. Venom sac- poison causes deleterious effect when ingested or injected (paralytic, sleep, confusion, death)
7. Parasites- carnivorous worms burrow into any exposed flesh. Can be applied against a new target host, causing rapid injury and disease.
8. Organ sac- thin membrane can be stretched over body. Increases swim speed, resilience to the elements (fire, cold, electricity, acid, etc).
9. Sticky secretions- applied to hands and knees, adds a significant bonus to climbing tests. Use it as a glue to anchor something in place.
10. Pineal gland secretion- psychedelic compound causes dreamlike visions, transient psychic powers and auguries of the future.
11. Alarm pheromone- apply the hormone to one’s body to summon like creatures which will defend you against a threat.
12. Eggs- ravenously delicious--other creatures will drop everything to greedly consume them. If left to rot, they become stink bombs.
13. Fur/ feathers- incomparably comfortable. Can be turned into a blanket or stuffed into pillows/ bedrolls. Causes extra hp recovery when sleeping on them for a full night.
14. Musk gland- apply to self, creatures assume you are not humanoid and will ignore your presence.
15. Horn/ tusks/ ivory- ground into powder and added to spell components to enhance magical effects.
16. Heart- when consumed adds temporary hp (1d3 doses)
17. Bile- cures poison, disease & purifies water.
18. Tear glands- salt from tears wards away spirits, ghosts & demons
19. Oil/ fat/ blubber- burns twice as hot (x2 damage) and twice as bright (x2 light radius) as lamp fuel
20. Reproductive organs- cures exhaustion, fatigue, & generates a temporary strength increase.

Sprawl Site Generator- The Barrens

The Barrens are a zone of crushing poverty and urban decay. Between gang territory disputes and the slow rot of industrial buildings, the megacorps find the perfect place to sequester shadow operations. Consequentially, the Barrens are a veritable hive of cyber-runner activity.

 

Roll or choose elements from the following list of random tables to quickly generate varied sites within the Barrens. Designed for Chromatic Shadows but compatible with any other cyberpunk/urban fantasy game.

 

Structure

1.  Apartment block/ row house.
2.  Public Facility
       1. School
       2. Government office
       3. Police barracks
       4. Fire station
       5. Park
       6. Community center/ YMCA
3.  Store
       1.  Market/ convenient store
       2. Liquor store
       3.  Pawn shop
       4. Guns n ammo/ army surplus
       5.  Restaurant/ Bar
       6. Electronics/ computer shop
   
4. Office building
5.  Medical clinic/ cybernetics chop shop
6. Homeless camp
7. Repair garage
8. Warehouse/ factory
9.  Laundromat
10. Arcade 
11. Junkyard/ scrap yard
12.  Storage cubicles
13. Subway station/ trestle
14. Overpass
15. Parking garage
16. Coffin hotels
17. Church/ orphanage
18. Data spire
19. Prison
20. Kennel
     
    

Structural Quality

1. Brutalist slab construction/ bunker
2. Tumbling multi story block
3. Grouping of conjoined geodesic domes
4. Crowded stacks of trailers
5. Composite of disparate architectural styles & materials
6. Classic architecture- brownstone, townhouse, Victorian  mansion
7. Raw, industrial building- exposed steel girders & concrete
   
8. Shoddy- plywood & chipboard construction
9. Temporary structure- vinyl tents,lean-to, pavilion
   
10. Below ground- built within renovated subway stop, or tunnel
11. Framed up with rebar scaffolding
12. Prefab- Corrugated aluminum/ Precast concrete/ 3D printed

Details

1. Covered in graffiti
2. Under construction/ being painted/ renovated
3. Caged doors & windows
4. Heavily damaged/ collapsing
5. Abandoned/ occupied by squatters
6. Recently looted & burned
7. Chain link and razor wire fence
8. Numerous stripped bicycles chained to nearby posts
9. Overrun with pigeons/ cages of pigeons
10. Piles of industrial debris, crates, palettes
11. Painted garish neon colors
12. Thick with flakes of chipped paint/ scabs of rust

Cyberpunk Textures

1. Antenna and satellite dishes cover roof
2. Large glitching AR signage
3. Covered in thick webs of telecom cable
4. Exterior and windows traced in buzzing neon
5. Crawling with numerous drones
6. Large flickering 3D billboard
7. Covered in solar panels
8. Too many security cameras
9. Stacks of video monitors playing television shows
10. Draped in strands of LED lights
11. Lit by numerous swaying fluorescent tube lights
12. Stacks of shuddering generators/ machines

12 WEIRD CYBERPUNK CLUBS

(Designed for use with Chromatic Shadows, but easy to slot into any existing cyberpunk or urban fantasy setting)

Clubs of the near future spare no expense in being unique. Singular and exotic themes sets one apart from the next. Roll randomly or choose one of the below, the next time your thirsty operators need a weird watering hole, or a safe place to settle a contract.

1. 'Chew'-- Bubble gum bar. Interior plastered with vintage gum ads, multicolored nubs and soft pink cushions. Full menu of intoxicating & euphoric gum choices.
2. ‘Gastronomicon’-- Exotic dancers wear devices that scope inside their bodies and project their internal organs as massive 3D AR objects in space above the crowd.
   
3. ‘Club Splice’-- Science themed club. The servers wear lab coats and serve frothing fluids from vials and beakers. A cyber-surgery kiosk is in center of the dance floor, where you can get amputations and implants in front of a live audience.
4. ‘Sanctuary’--Indoor natural habitat. Floor is soft grass and ferns. Exotic birds roost in the rafters, and nest among the indoor trees. 3D projection screens on the walls display creeks winding away into a deep forest. AR wildlife wander throughout the space.
5. ‘Club Shhhh’--Felted walls, and thick carpeted floors. No speaking above a whisper. Everyone listens to their private music, dancing in complete silence.
6. ‘Club Heat’-- Pitch black. No lights at all anywhere inside. Get your pair of infrared goggles at the door. Share a warm time in the dark with a stranger
7. ‘Red October’-- Club is within a decommissioned submarine permanently docked at the river's edge. The interior is painted and upholstered in deep scarlet, and lit by neon. Staff wear suggestive soviet military uniforms, serve bitter tea and the strongest vodka in the Sprawl. Notorious hangout of anarchists, street activists, and punks.
8. ‘Bubble Club’-- Dance club where every member of the crowd dances within their own human sized vinyl bubble.
9. 'Bacchus'-- Greco-Roman themed masquerade/ sex club. Club goers partake in elaborate costumes, high pageantry & drunken revelry. Back rooms for the VIPs to partake in ecstatic sexual experimentation.
10. 'The Cauldron'-- Occult themed club. Decor draws heavily on Victorian occultism, Hermetic tradition, witchcraft and the tarot. Tables are Ouija boards, waitstaff wears black hooded robes, and the drinks served in large golden goblets.
11. 'Heaven'-- Club interior simulates floating high above the sky. Dance floor is 3D projection screen of a view 5 miles above the ground looking down. Fans blow thick fog throughout, while AR clouds drift through the space.
12. 'The Cage'-- Accessible from an abandoned high rise. The Cage is situated between two close skyscrapers, built from a network of steel scaffolding. Swaying and howling in the high winds, the Cage is not for the faint of heart or for those who fear heights

ICE GENERATOR

Dangerous digital sentinals guard megacorporate data vaults deep within the Matrix. Here is a generator to quickly determine what fearful form these Intrusion Countermeasures take. For use with Chromatic Shadows and other cyberpunk games.

Form

1. Wolf/ hyena/ panther
   
2. Swarm of bees/ hornets/ locusts
3. Bladed orb
4. Armored knight
5. Shifting geometric shapes
6. Snake
   
7. Spiders/ scorpion/ crab
   
8. Shark/ piranha
9. Cloud of blades
10. Ball of energy
11. Skeletal warriors
12. Flying skulls
13. Predatory birds
    
14. Squid/ octopus
15. Harpy
16. Wyvern
17. Spectral apparition
18. Angel
19. Demon/ imp
20. Virus/ spore
    

Substance

1. Crackling/ pulsing energy
2. Icy cold
3. Wreathed in/ made of flame
4. Void blackness
5. Faceted mirror
6. Prismatic/ rainbow
   
7. Erupting spikes/ thorns
   
8. mass of nanites/ nodules/ sparkling dust
9. Liquid quicksilver/ chrome
   
10. Dense black smoke
11. Riveted iron
12. Veined stone
13. Blazing/ blinding light
14. Pulsing circuitry
15. Fractal shapes/ angles
16. Gold
    
17. Diamond/ crystal
    
18. Mechanical/ robotic/ clockwork
    

OCCULT ASSET GENERATOR

At the heart of the Shadow War, the megacorps struggle to control eldritch artifacts and hypertech devices known as Occult Assets. Billions of credits and thousands of lives have been lost in pursuit of this power. Any megacorp that unlocks these secrets, and spins them into a global commodity, will dominate their rivals. Here are several random tables and prompts to create Occult Assets for Chromatic Shadows, my in-progress weird cyberpunk RPG.

 

Origin

1. Salvaged from original Lunar mining expedition
2. Recovered/ reverse engineered from crashed alien craft
3. Plundered from Antarctic/ Lemurian/ Atlantean ruins
4. Obtained within crashed meteorite
5. Claimed from interdimensional portal
6. Created by another esoteric device
   

Shape

1. Cylinder/ rod
2. Sphere/ prolate spheroid
3. Prism/ crystal/ platonic solid
4. Cube/ box/ tablet
5. Pyramid/ Cone
6. seed/ spore/ egg
7. Disk/ lozenge
8. Shell (1.nautilus, 2. snail, 3. clam, 4. conch, 5. oyster, 6. scallop)
9. Vessel (bowl/ chalice/ vase/ pyx)
10. U-shaped/ torus/ tesseract
11. Body part (1.head/skull, 2.fist/ hand, 3. arm, 4.brain, 5. heart/ kidney, 6.spine 7. Large tooth 8.phallus 9.breast 10.oriface [mouth/anus/vagina])
12. Combination of 1d3 above elements

Substance

1. Meteoric metal/ mineral/ graphite/ carbon
2. Living thing: animal/ plant/ fungi/ hybrid
3. crystalline/ glass/ diamond
4. amber/ resin/ plastic
5. Quivering flesh/ Teratomic mass of eyes, hair and teeth
6. Thick foam, can be twisted and deformed, but returns to original shape
7. Ice that never melts
8. Carved bone/ ivory/ wood/ coral/ chitin/ cartilage
9. Ceramic/ porcelain/ marble
10. Granules/ particles/ nanites/ tiny organisms
11. Covered in/ composed of oily tar/ slime
12. Simulation/ hologram/ VR construct

Arrangement

1. Non-solid/ energy/ holographic projection/ kinetic state/ void substance
2. web/ net/ mesh/ lace
3. Highly complex interwoven circuitry that lights & flashes along pathways
4. Pulsing crude machine, made of disparate/ old/ patchwork components
5. Golden gears/ wheels/ clockwork
6. Encrusted in jewels/ gems/ pear/ mirrored facets
7. Bundle or pattern of component shapes/ nodules/ elements
8. Lattice/ bundle of fibers/ rods
9. husk/ exoshell/ carapace
10. Nano-thin surface composition

Characteristic

1. Pulsing with inner light
2. Conforms/ covers/ flows over any objects that it touches
3. Contains portal/ peepholes to alien/ cosmic vistas
4. Filled with liquid/ gas flowing in a coriolis system
5. Surface reflects the viewer/ surroundings at different age/ gender/ past or future state/ dead or decaying
6. Rapidly moving through cycle of creation & decay
7. Covered in soft pink cilia that reacts when touched
8. Vanta black type surface, absorbs all light. Comes off on fingers, but fades in 1d6 rounds
9. Mechanisms moving & rearranging component shapes
10. Perpetually slick/ sticky with slime/ oil/ tar
11. Emits a soft resonant pitch/ hum
12. Sound of low muttering voices comes from it
13. Temperature fluctuates from warm to icy cold
14. Crackles and arcs with blue energy
15. Quivvers/ pliant/ sensually reactive when touched
16. Glowing soupy fluid-- murky images coalesce below surface
17. Radiates unapproachable light/ requires black out goggles to a view
18. Sprouts hair/ scales/ feathers
19. Sweating/ excreting/ discharging substance
20. Budding/ blooming fungi/ flower/ simple organisms

Warps Reality via...

1. Forces (fire, electricity, nuclear, temperature, gravity, magnetism, time)
2. Space (connections between places/ locations, inside vs outside space)
3. Consciousness (senses, dreams, mind, visions, hallucinations, compulsions, emotion)
4. Psychic phenomenon (ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, remote viewing, clairvoyance, prophecy, precognition)
5. Manipulation of the digital realm (AI Daemon, AR/ Matrix/ Cloud architecture)
6. Occult powers/ magic/ sorcery
7. Spirits/ hauntings/ ghosts/ poltergeists
8. Physical matter (natural and artificial substance)
9. Life (human biology, animals & plant life)
10. Void (interdimensional portals, eldritch beings/ outsiders/ alien beings)

How is it being exploited/ accelerated?

1. Installed within a machine/ device/ process to amplify effect
2. In a neurodrift network with a group of human/ animal subjects
3. External energy source interacting with it
4. Used/ amplified within occult ritual
5. Being fused with subject via Direct Neural Interface pathways
6. Gestating inside an artificial womb/ vat/ or within a human/ animal/ plant matrix
7. Host subject infused with device’s energy/ physicality. Subject’s biological/ psychological/ genetic structures being rewritten/ altered.
8. Used as antennae/ energy source/ amplifier/ interface for external hypertech
9. Interacting/ influencing subjects in a VR construct/ simulation
10. Interfaced with outside entity/ AI Daemon/ eldritch being/ spirit

Asset Power Level

1. Individual person. Self or another.
2. Group of people/ building
3. community/ city block
4. Neighborhood
5. Sprawl zone/ district
6. Large swath of sprawl encompassing several zones

Asset Design Considerations/ Systems

• Occult Assets are extraordinarily powerful, valuable, and highly contested. The megacorps fight their Shadow War over them, and will spare no expense in their recovery. Major events within the game world revolve around them. They do not fall casually into the hands of PCs. If and when the do, the game world is always shaken up by this change in power dynamic.
• Occult Assets embody the Weird. Not only do they possess raw power, but they disrupt established reality and the status quo. The corps can barely hold them in check. These devices as a rule, cannot be predicted with total accuracy, cannot be mastered, and resist total comprehension. They are often at once obscenely powerful and totally absurd. A device’s true origins and purpose defy any easy answer.
• They typically have a single primary effect, and several secondary effects, that may contradict, or complicate its use. Using an occult asset is never straightforward, and often comes at the price of a difficult tradeoff, or side effect.
• Using an occult asset in any way  has an ambient and cumulative effect on it's environment. The 'weird' rubs off on local reality. It affects existence (especially people, animals & plants) in subtle, but unmistakable ways. Its not uncommon for individuals who are unaffected by an asset's direct or indirect effects to still have strange dreams, or to manifest subtle psychic abilities, or compulsions. Animals might be disturbed, or manifest uncanny intelligence. Plants might grow abundantly exhibit strange mutations or not grow at all.
  
• An Occult Asset may require specific ‘in-game’ routines to activate. There may be necessary words, gesture, rituals, codes, programs, energy sources, substances, configurations, arrangements, physical locations, sounds, etc. that must be satisfied in order to ‘unlock’ a device’s power. These routines may or may not be obvious to a would be user, and their discovery might be its own separate mission.

PROCEDURAL TUNNEL CRAWL

 

(Written for Vampire, but easily fits into any sort of old school urban/ horror adventure game)

In my V20 game, the players are preparing to delve into the abandoned coal railway tunnels beneath Chicago's Loop in search of their enemy's lair.  I designed the tunnel system as a point crawl map along with a series of random tables in order to generate each "node" as they make their way through. 

Although the characters have a map, and know approximately where they need to go, the system itself is only navigable through a series of possible passageways. Additionally, they've  been given a choice of three possible above ground starting points (the sub-levels of historical buildings) where the tunnels are accessible. The closer the access point is to their final destination, the higher the security risk, so there's a trade off from the beginning. They can deal with more security and surveillance above ground and bypass a few nodes underground, or start from a relatively safe access point that's further away.

The Map!

3 POSSIBLE ENTRY POINTS

1. Chicago Cultural Center. Mayor’s reception venue. Grand ballroom where rich people throw parties. Not in use at the moment. Fairly antiquated security system, and light on-site security guards. Access in sublevel, in an old coal burning room, now used for storage. Farthest away from destination.
2. Palmer House Hilton. Gilded age hotel, struggling financially. Cameras and security guards, but underfunded and understaffed. Basement access to old tunnel, bricked up in the back of a laundry room. Midway point to destination.
3. Tribune Tower. Neo-gothic skyscraper. Offices. Center of loop, state of the art security and patrols. Bricked up access port in the pipeworks sub-level. Closest point to destination.

ENVIRONMENT 

• The old rail tunnels are cramped 7' high and 6' wide shafts. They intersect the subway system and sewer at intervals,  getting considerably wider at points. In other cases they are choked with debris, and partially collapsed making them much more narrow.
•  The whole system is a patchwork of old and new construction making the network unpredictable and dangerous. It's also the exclusive domain of a sadistic Nosferatu who has set numerous deadly traps throughout.

1. Standard, clear tunnel.
2. Heavy wooden ribbing and supports holding ceiling and wall in place. Precarious.
3. Narrows. Crawl to proceed
4. Open area. Hub, vaulted ceiling
5. Collapsed, impassible
6. Much wider tunnel (subway line)
7. Old subways jamming tunnel, must be crawled through
8. Trap!

Traps

1. Pit Trap with spikes
   
2. Stakes shoot from wall shaft
3. Bricks fall from ceiling cache
   
4. Pendulum blade
5.  Acid bottles from ceiling cache
6.  Wet area rigged with live electric cable

 Mechanism 

(where applicable)

1. Trip wire
2. pressure plate
3. rigged door

TUNNEL FEATURES

1. Filled with heavy boxes and crates (coal, concrete, railroad ties, tar)
   
2. Unstable floor (drops to pit)
3. Unstable supports (might collapse area)
4. The sign of Zelios: his sign can be seen carved into bas relief ornamentation (the harlequin mask, roses, and a medallion with the letter Z, Latin inscription: “by the hand of the architect, immortal.)
5. Strange effigies and fetish objects hang from the ceiling (bones, stones, etc.) Occult symbols painted on wall.
6. Filled with old broken coal-filled railway cars
7. Vermin nest
8. People down here (homeless, explorers, graffiti kids, etc.)
9. Dead bodies/ skeletons beneath rubble (animals, human, or otherwise)
10. Flooded
11. Choked with debris & trash
12. Bricked up. Break through or turn back.

TEXTURES

1. Water dripping rhythmically from sweating pipes above.
2. Rumbling of a nearby subway. Dirt debris dislodging in a spray
3. Exposed pipeworks emitting gouts of white billowing steam.
4. The sound of loud rushing water through grates in the ground
5. Vast graffiti mural. Occult symbols punctuated throughout.
6. Sound of traffic seems to echo from above (although obviously far off)
7. Footsteps seem to follow the PCs. They die off when the PCs stop to listen. A moving figure just beyond range of light in the distance
8. Distant sounds: strange laughter, dog barking,soft crying (may lead to trap)
   
9. A small railcar is seen in the distance moving through an intersecting tunnel. Upon inspection, the tracks are torn up, and the tunnel is filled with rubble.
10. A piece of coal is thrown at the PCs from somewhere in the darkness ahead. There is no one there.
11. The temperature drops to ice cold for no apparent reason
12. Heavy scratching in the walls and ceiling. Claws marks rending through stone and wood.

SKETCHES OF CALYX

 Here are 3 city districts from my in-progress City of Calyx setting for old school D&D.

Insula District

Residential district of of Calyx’s middle class. Multi-storied (1d6 stories) brick and stone insulas with clay shingles built up against the cliff face. Narrow streets and alleys run between them.
 

Features (roll 1 or more)

1. 1d6 Extra stories, rickety ladders reach to small precarious apartments high above
2. Unstable, the whole insula is reinforced with timbers to keep it from falling over
3. Decorative- painted with brightly colored patterns and botanical motifs
4. Ornamental- bas relief carvings and gargoyles adorn the exterior
5. Exterior walls covered in thick vines of dark green ivy and small purple flowers. Bees and hummingbirds drawn to the sweet blossoms.
6. Abandoned, and ramshackle. Floors have collapsed in on themselves. Thistle and sweetbrush grow rampantly within. Great sagging wasp nests.
7. Hundreds of clay and twig nests built along the eaves. Countless chattering iridescent grackles congregate upon the roof.
8. Apartments carved out of an outcrop of stone cliffside.
9. Under construction- new building being built or old one being repaired. Crew of laborers with several carts of bricks, mortar and timber
10. Over crowded. Each apartment is bursting to capacity with tenents. Clothes lines heavy with  fabrics sag between close buildings. Colorful rugs are draped from every balcony.
    

People of the Insula District

1. Merchant families
   
2. Skilled laborers
3. Low ranking city bureaucrats
4. City officials
5. Guards/ soldiers
   
6. Guild artists/ artisans
7. Minor philosophers/ poets
8.  Scholars

Bazaar District

Overlapping patchwork of colorful tents and canopies cover four city blocks. A maze of bustling activity, commerce, shops, food stalls, music, revelry and criminal enterprise. Just about anything can be found here for the right price: rich food, exotic regents, rare animals, weapons and equipment, all manner of services for hire (legal and illegal).

Tents of the Bazaar

1. Patchwork of faded fabric, sagging, propped up by spindly wooden sticks
2. Sturdy & large white and red striped rotunda, doors and windows
3. Animal skins, with bits of fur and flesh still attached. Smells of tannins and rot
4. Billowing red fabric. Multiple rooms separated by veils and beaded curtains
5. Vibrant blue, orange and yellow. Pit dug below, with a ladder leading to a stall. Workers dig even deeper as the vendor conducts business below.
6. Wooden platform 15 feet above accessible by ladder. A sign reads: “remove clothes before ascending”. Above, a tent of white and golden fabrics swish in the sun. Mirrors and dangling glass catch the sunlight.
7. Black tarps piled on top of each other, creating a cave like tunnel. Small corridors lead to various openings and stalls of ill repute.
8. Geometric patterned tapestries, opens into chamber thick with incense. Piles of thick rugs heaped on the ground. Sound is muffled.

Food of the Bazaar

1. Roasted white grubs on a skewer
2. Giant frogs smoked on a line over a fire pit
3. Bag o’ spicy locusts
4. Sorghum brick with solar escagraph
5. Honey millet stick with crunchy ants
6. Lizard jerky
7. Monkey meat pita with llama yogurt
8. Honey glazed dog leg
9. Pepper snake on a stick
10. Fried whole sparrow with sage
11. Boiled white tubers
12. Produce: figs, pomegranates, olives, dates, almonds, muskmelon, grapes
13. Sorghum beer: cloudy brown, earthy and sweet, highly alcoholic
14. Sorghum desserts and fried pastries
15. Jellied frog eggs on sorghum chips
    
16.  Honeycomb with live bees
17. Goat sausage boiled in blood
18. Almond paste biscuits (various erotic shapes)
    
19. Pomegranate liquor
20.  Pickled peacock eggs
    

Merchant stalls

1. Food stall merchant (roll on food table to determine which)
2. Animal handler drawing cages of exotic beasts to a menagerie tent,
3. Psychedelic dealer. Various substances in pots and jars within a locked box: diviners sage, scorpion venom, black tar incense, live blue centipedes, dream grass, worm powder, witch cactus,
4. Alchemical regents and magic items
5. Clay pots and vessels sold by women from the mud district
6. Ponchos & grass sombreros
7. Multicolored gems, geodes and stones
8. Haircuts, weaves and beard styling
9. Incense & exotic desert spices
10. Reader of palms & fortunes
    
11. Brass solar medallions, good luck charms, protective talismans
12. Massage/ Acupuncture therapy
13. Brothel. Lovely ladies and lads available for comfort and companionship.
14. Apiary. Bees cover the tent walls & fly out of an open roof flap. Wooden hives contain copious fresh honey.
15. Tea tent. A small iron stove with copper kettles filling the tent with billowing steam.
16. Greenhouse, woven white mesh. Humid. Tables of plants and blooming flowers. Bees
17. Art gallery. Paintings hung in carved frames.
18. Goldsmith and purveyor of fine jewels
19. Map merchant and scribe
    
20. Tattoo & piercing parlor

People of the Bazaar

1. Twin women in peacock feather dresses stand on stilts, juggling knives and flaming torches. Trained monkeys pick pockets during their performance.
2. Grass elves (black sombreros, multicolored ponchos) transporting giant insect nymphs tied down to a wagon. Insects are docile and drugged with Diviner’s Sage.
3. Red wizards haggling and threatening a vendor for regents
4. Drunk youth brawling and expelling vomiting in the street
5. Ascetic street preachers in loincloths painted bodies with arcane symbols ranting about “the Singing Presence” and “the Father of a Thousand Forms”.
6. Wide eyed, naive and inhumanly beautiful humanoids with exotic skin colors (blue, red, purple, green) follow in the company of a Red Wizard (beings grown from the vivimancer's vats in the Arcane College).
7. Vestal virgins from the Shrine of the Moons wearing silvery togas,veils and long braided hair. Processing silently to the temple of Utu for daily homage and back. Carrying silver sickles.
8. 1d4 adventurers fresh from the Rift. (1. Carrying a dead companion 2. Raving psychotically about the Elder Gods or the Great Old Ones 3. Partying ferociously in the back of a wagon 4. Selling a cache of rift artifacts/ Monster parts/ Foraged psychedelics/ Geodes)
9. Street artists involved in a performance
10. Teenagers hallucinating wildly. Pockets are full of various psychedelic herbs.
    
11. Philosophers arguing over esoteric metaphysics.
    
12. Gladiators covered in scars, followed by throngs of adoring fans.
    

Domus District

Gated wealthy neighborhood of beautiful villas behind a high stone wall. Troops of chattering monkeys roost in the olive and almond trees that grow here. They are notorious for stealing baubles and coins and hide them among the branches. Children will often sneak into the district just to steal anything of value from the treetop roosts.

Structures

1. Stone manor faced with high fluted columns & ornate pediment.
2. Two story villa. Stucco & red clay shingles. Inner courtyard with flowering redbud and yellow ginkgo trees..
3. Shrine to a minor god of fertility or love. Lovers cavorting in the bushes.
4. Private well, solar motifs. Servants drawing buckets for their lords & ladies.
5. Herb garden, overgrown with flowering sage, rhubarb, rhododendron and sweet brush. Birds, rabbits, and red fox nest here.
6. Large pavilion with a stage and long stone bleachers.
7. Glass enclosed greenhouse filled with blooming flowers. Buzzing with bees.
   
8. A walled park of fig, olive & pomegranate trees. Gazebo, benches & statuary
9. Bath House with veined columns and voluptuous nude statuary.
10. Menagerie filled with exotic birds, monkeys, reptiles & occasional monster
    

People of Domus District

1. Wealthy merchants in opulent robes and jewelry
2. Sorghum field owners
3. High ranking officers
4. Noble families
5. Slave dealers
6. Bankers/ financiers
7. Chief architects & engineers
8. City politicians & council members
9. Lawyers & judges
10. Celebrated philosophers/ artists/ poets

Spire District

Upon the crown of Calyx rests the opulent Spire District, the seat of Calyx government, wealth and temporal power. The complex is composed of great palaces, towers, and barracks built out of cut stone.

Structures

1. Folly of delicate arches and tracing above hidden gardens and grottoes
2. Ring of fluted columns enclose a (1d6) tiered fountains. Statues of nudes women and children frolicking in the water.
3. A mahogany door opens out of an ivy covered wall into a long banquet hall. 2 in 6 chance of a great feast taking place.
4. Double white doors with ornate tracery open to a grand ballroom. Balconies above the open floor are festooned with bouquets and imperial banners. Prince Mitra throws a ball almost every evening, and the royal servants scramble with the preparations during the day. Sometimes the Calyx Quartet can be heard practicing their waltzes during the day.
5. Shrines to a goddess of beauty/ wealth/ pleasure
6. Bathouses carved into the ground. Natural hot springs feed luxurious tiled basins. Nude nobility cavorting.
   
7. Gallery of plundered artifacts, and relics from a previous age.
8. Menagerie. Exotic animals and monsters in golden cages. Many are intelligent and will bargain for release.
   
9. Hedge maze, filled with marble statues. The nobilty often escape here to conduct private business both carnal and criminal. 
10. Vast ornamental garden. Manicured walkways, grottoes, and carp pools. Exotic plants, flowers, and fruit laden trees. Peacock roosts.
    

WEIRD CYBERPUNK PLOT NODE GENERATOR

This generator is designed for use with Chromatic Shadows, my in-progress weird cyberpunk RPG. 

In Chromatic Shadows, the missions you run your for the megacorps don't happen in a vacuum. Other events are taking place in the weird-haunted Sprawl that impact you and the people you know. As your character reaches out to their contacts and engage with various NPCs they become embroiled in the numerous plots and intrigues running behind the scenes. This generator provides the tools to quickly create those plots, and to draw the lines of connection between them.

PLOT NODES

• Determine 2-3 starting Plot Nodes. These are large-scale adventure hooks. They don’t need to be introduced all at once. They exist as areas of focal interest, optional exploration, additional layer of texture/ detail/ context to your campaign. They say “hey there's something going on over here, come take a look if you want!”.

• Connect a character contact to each of these nodes, in order to create a "personal connection". When the contact is activated, reveal bits of the “sub-plot” when relevant. Give glimpses and teases of events happening behind the scenes to draw player interest.

• Create continuity & connect things together. As the story is being built sandbox style, tie new discoveries, & NPCs back to these nodes as makes sense. 

• As old nodes are being dealt with, and as the characters organically pursue their own agendas, introduce new nodes and story hooks. Find ways that large nodes connect to each other and the influence of one relates or comes into conflict with another. 

 

PLOT NODE DETAILS TABLES

• Plot Nodes contain various associated details that can be chosen or randomly determined. The following tables can used whenever a relevant detail comes into play.
  

Megacorps

1. SinCom
2. CortX
3. Biodyne
4. Aerotec
5. Citadel
6. Reroll

Sprawl Zones

1. Metroplex
2. Fortress Estates
3. CorpSec
4. The Barrens
5. The Slags
6. Arcologies

Shadow Facility

1.  R&D lab/ black site/ bunker
   
2. Concealing alien structure/ vessel/ energy source
   
3. Containment unit/ prison
   
4.  Mystical/ cult based (temple, ritual chamber, ceremonial space)
   
5.  Portal (remote location, extra-dimension)
6. Matrix based/ VR construct
   

Factions

1. Criminal Cartel/ Gangs
   
2. Hand of Moloch
3. Sentinel
4. Matrix Daemons
5. Order of Typhon
6. Neotribes

Neotribe

1. Ferals
2. Leather Angels
3. Nils
4. Paladins
5. Satans
6. Borgs
7. Proteans
8. Clowns
9. Iron Men
10. Draculas
    

Large scale city events

1. Political upheaval, protests/ riots
2. Plague, drug epidemic
3. Terrorism, law enforcement/ surveillance lock down
4. Urban renewal projects
5. Crime wave, looting, fires/ arson,
6. Disaster (flood, hurricane, displaced populations, resource scarcity)

Outside Entity

1. Bio-engineered hybrid/ chimera
2. Extra-dimensional horror
3. Animal uplift
   
4. Matrix daemon
5. Alien entity
6. Spirit/ ghost/ poltergeist

Black Market Assets

1. Cyberware
2. Drugs, stims
3. Weapons
4. Drones/ machines, vehicles
5. Matrix/ DNI tech, software
6. Biotech, organ legging

Esoteric Assets

1. Hypertech machinery
   
2. Weapons
3. Inter-dimensional portals
4. Psychic assets (remote viewing, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition, dream-tech, emotion/ compulsion)
5. Alien artifacts
6. Biological assets

Reality Warping Effects

1. Physical forces (fire, electricity, nuclear, temperature, gravity, magnetism, time)
2. Space (connections between places/ locations, inside vs outside space)
3. Perception (mind, senses, illusion, compulsions, emotion)
4. Physical matter (natural and artificial substance)
5. Life (human biology, animals & plant life)
6. Void (extra dimensions, alien life forms, spirit)

PLOT NODE GENERATOR TABLES

• Roll 1d6 to determine node type, and then roll 1d6 twice more to determine the features of that node category. Consult the above "node-details" tables to determine other attributes/ textures as necessary.
  

1. FALLOUT FROM RECENT CYBERRUN UPON A ZONE

• Roll for Sprawl zone effected & Megacorp targeted
  

Area Effected:

1. Neighborhood block
2. Residential pods/ apartments
3. Industrial area
4. Physical infrastructure (energy/ transportation/ water/ sewer)
5. Digital infrastructure: AR Nodes, Matrix hosts, VR construct server farms
6. business/ commercial/ public services

Actions:

1. Cover Ups/ disappearances/ mind-wipes/
2. Damaged property, explosions, fires,
3. Injured people, death, disease
4. Eye witnesses, stories, rumors
5. Occult asset somehow got loose, being actively searched for
6.  Heightened law enforcement & media attention
   

2. UNCANNY INFLUENCE UPON A SITE

•  Roll to determine the Sprawl zone of site.
  

Type of influence:

1. Esoteric Creature (cryptid, hybrid chimera, bio-experiment, extradimensional entity, matrix daemon, spirit/ ghost)
2. reality warping effect (psychic phenomenon, space-time distortion,
3. Extra dimensional breach/ dimensional portal (site connected to another location or dimension)
4. Haunting, possessions,
5. Physical or psychological effects (deformity, disease, transformation, odd behavior)

How is influence being delivered:

1. Abandoned shadow war facility (R&D lab, production facility)
2. Occult asset in play (misplaced and lost, being kept somewhere secretly by an agency, being used leveraged somehow for gain, being used but unwittingly)
3. Hidden lair/ hive/ tunnel/ dungeon
   
4. Ley line, vortex/ focal point of occult energy
5. Effects anchored to/ influenced by a person or an object
6. Through a digital medium/ node/ matrix

 

3. MAJOR FACTION ACTIVITY WITHIN A ZONE

• Roll to determine Sprawl zone and Factions involved
  

What type of activity?

1. Seeking asset (esoteric, black market)
2. Consolidating strength
3. Dramatic falloff of influence/ power vacuum
4. Trying to gain foothold in contested area
5. Moving in on a “tainted” zone,
6. Seeking information

Secondary characteristic

1. Uncanny influence (Y/N?)
2. Underground/ black market assets (drugs, weapons, cyberware, stims, electronics)
3. Social asset in play (important group of people involved/ contested, gang, neotribe, neighborhood)
4. Physical asset in play (residential building/ commercial/ industrial, infrastructure, natural feature)
5. Digital asset in play (AR node/ Matrix host/ VR construct server farm/ telecom station/ broadcast towers)
6. Economic asset in play (business, high profile club, bank, real estate/ property)
   

 

4. EXTRA FACTIONAL CONFLICT

• Megacorps (roll) and/ or factions (roll) in conflict with a large scale Sprawl event (roll zone)

Large-scale Sprawl event

1. Politics, Protests,
2. Terrorism, riots, looting fires/ arson,
3. Renewal, infrastructure projects
4. Rampant crime, drug epidemic,
5. Disaster (flood, hurricane), plague,
6. Immigrant wave, displaced populations

Type of Conflict

1. Over physical territory
2. Over a contested asset (esoteric or otherwise)
3. Competing sphere of influence (economic/ PR/ political)
4. Corp responsible/ implicated in negative situation
5. Caught in the crossfire through no fault of their own, but now involved
6. Trying to actively help situation, but causing unintended consequences/ complications/ harm

 

5. SHADOW WAR SHAKE UP

• Major events are shaking up the Shadow War, the megacorps & the cyberrunning community (roll for which corp is being affected)

1. Merger. Megacorp absorbs another, becoming more powerful and expanding their sphere of influence.
2. Economic downturn, Bankruptcy, financial vulnerability
3. New corp enters war
4. Legal exposure, high profile lawsuit, wide scale crime comes to light
5. Alliance between rivals
6. Event causes major loss of key public infrastructure/ asset (fire, sabotage, malfunction, quake)

How is cyberrunning community affected

1. Contracts drying up/ runs are less lucrative/ more competition between runners. Runner bars becoming hostile.
2. Sudden surge of contracts. Contracts paying more. More cash flowing. Scene is blowing up. Runners getting more access to drugs, cyberware & stims. Drug and cyber-addiction increasing.
3. Anonymous identity of contracts slipping. Mission details reveal too much in light of recent events. Runners gain knowledge of corporate sponsor or target. Corporate retaliation possible.
4. Black-market drying up. Stims/ drugs/ cyberware becoming scarce. Withdrawal from scene. Fewer runners coming around looking for contracts.
5. Vigilance. Paranoid. Proxies extra cautious. Kicking crews off contracts for slightest perceived unreliability. Corporate investigation of the slightest perceived indiscretion
6. Runner crews disappearing. Individual runners dropping off the map. No clear knowledge of who or what is going on. Crews are laying low until answers can be found.

 

6. INTER-FACTIONAL CONFLICT

1. Shake up/ redistribution of power within a single faction (leadership, resources, infrastructure, territory,)
2. Rivalry between two closely related factions (rival neotribes/ cultists/ criminal/ daemon)
3. Triangulation: Alliance between disparate factions, against a third faction (common enemy)
4. Faction losing power in zone, being killed, mass defection of members, loss of resources, or otherwise diminished influence (external event/ power vacuum or rival faction/ being supplanted)
5. Massive power consolidation within zone. (due to esoteric asset, seized physical/ digital infrastructure, political alliance with another faction, community, government)
6. Transformation of faction into something else. Identity shift from one state to another. Fashion is behaving different, caging its core beliefs, and actions

Secondary Interest

1. Piece of unique architecture, neighborhood building pivotal
2. Members of one (or more) the factions are being influenced by an uncanny/ supernatural.force (creature, asset, effect)
3. A demagogue/ cult of personality like figure has emerged, and his influence is part of these events
4. Radical new belief system is influencing things (restatement of old beliefs or a new system)
5. Disillusionment within the ranks is influencing things
6. External event is influencing things (sudden wealth/ healthcare/ economic stability or its opposite disease, drug addiction, poverty. Also environmental factors such as weather, climate, environmental livability, law enforcement) 

 

CHARACTER CONTACT INVOLVEMENT

1. Being targeted/ pursued by X for something they (did, know, have, etc)
2. In need of something desperately (advance position/ upward mobility, revenge, money, information, drugs, cyberware, medicine, information) . Pressuring you to do something risky.
3. Acting erratic/ strange behavior. Not in control of own actions. (possessed by outside influence, being drugged, behavior induced through digital interface, hypnotized, being pressured/ leveraged/ extorted).
4. Victim of an attack (themselves or someone they know). (cult, ritualistic, cyberware theft, scarrifiation, kidnapping, etc) may require medical assistance, retribution. (The attacker was under some kind of outside influence. What was it? Connections to the occult world?) Could also be an attack against an asset (theft/ arson/ extortion)
5. Involved in a complicated relationship (business, romantic, needs help getting out). Third party might be willing to bargain, but the price is something very risky to achieve.
6. Experiencing meteoric success (business, relationship, wealth, personal beauty, status). Comes at a personal cost (health, business relationship, esoteric asset, drug, occult involvement ) or at the cost of another (extortion, theft, harm)