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
- Salvaged from original Lunar mining expedition
- Recovered/ reverse engineered from crashed alien craft
- Plundered from Antarctic/ Lemurian/ Atlantean ruins
- Obtained within crashed meteorite
- Claimed from interdimensional portal
- Created by another esoteric device
Shape
- Cylinder/ rod
- Sphere/ prolate spheroid
- Prism/ crystal/ platonic solid
- Cube/ box/ tablet
- Pyramid/ Cone
- seed/ spore/ egg
- Disk/ lozenge
- Shell (1.nautilus, 2. snail, 3. clam, 4. conch, 5. oyster, 6. scallop)
- Vessel (bowl/ chalice/ vase/ pyx)
- U-shaped/ torus/ tesseract
- 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])
- Combination of 1d3 above elements
Substance
- Meteoric metal/ mineral/ graphite/ carbon
- Living thing: animal/ plant/ fungi/ hybrid
- crystalline/ glass/ diamond
- amber/ resin/ plastic
- Quivering flesh/ Teratomic mass of eyes, hair and teeth
- Thick foam, can be twisted and deformed, but returns to original shape
- Ice that never melts
- Carved bone/ ivory/ wood/ coral/ chitin/ cartilage
- Ceramic/ porcelain/ marble
- Granules/ particles/ nanites/ tiny organisms
- Covered in/ composed of oily tar/ slime
- Simulation/ hologram/ VR construct
Arrangement
- Non-solid/ energy/ holographic projection/ kinetic state/ void substance
- web/ net/ mesh/ lace
- Highly complex interwoven circuitry that lights & flashes along pathways
- Pulsing crude machine, made of disparate/ old/ patchwork components
- Golden gears/ wheels/ clockwork
- Encrusted in jewels/ gems/ pear/ mirrored facets
- Bundle or pattern of component shapes/ nodules/ elements
- Lattice/ bundle of fibers/ rods
- husk/ exoshell/ carapace
- Nano-thin surface composition
Characteristic
- Pulsing with inner light
- Conforms/ covers/ flows over any objects that it touches
- Contains portal/ peepholes to alien/ cosmic vistas
- Filled with liquid/ gas flowing in a coriolis system
- Surface reflects the viewer/ surroundings at different age/ gender/ past or future state/ dead or decaying
- Rapidly moving through cycle of creation & decay
- Covered in soft pink cilia that reacts when touched
- Vanta black type surface, absorbs all light. Comes off on fingers, but fades in 1d6 rounds
- Mechanisms moving & rearranging component shapes
- Perpetually slick/ sticky with slime/ oil/ tar
- Emits a soft resonant pitch/ hum
- Sound of low muttering voices comes from it
- Temperature fluctuates from warm to icy cold
- Crackles and arcs with blue energy
- Quivvers/ pliant/ sensually reactive when touched
- Glowing soupy fluid-- murky images coalesce below surface
- Radiates unapproachable light/ requires black out goggles to a view
- Sprouts hair/ scales/ feathers
- Sweating/ excreting/ discharging substance
- Budding/ blooming fungi/ flower/ simple organisms
Warps Reality via...
- Forces (fire, electricity, nuclear, temperature, gravity, magnetism, time)
- Space (connections between places/ locations, inside vs outside space)
- Consciousness (senses, dreams, mind, visions, hallucinations, compulsions, emotion)
- Psychic phenomenon (ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, remote viewing, clairvoyance, prophecy, precognition)
- Manipulation of the digital realm (AI Daemon, AR/ Matrix/ Cloud architecture)
- Occult powers/ magic/ sorcery
- Spirits/ hauntings/ ghosts/ poltergeists
- Physical matter (natural and artificial substance)
- Life (human biology, animals & plant life)
- Void (interdimensional portals, eldritch beings/ outsiders/ alien beings)
How is it being exploited/ accelerated?
- Installed within a machine/ device/ process to amplify effect
- In a neurodrift network with a group of human/ animal subjects
- External energy source interacting with it
- Used/ amplified within occult ritual
- Being fused with subject via Direct Neural Interface pathways
- Gestating inside an artificial womb/ vat/ or within a human/ animal/ plant matrix
- Host subject infused with device’s energy/ physicality. Subject’s biological/ psychological/ genetic structures being rewritten/ altered.
- Used as antennae/ energy source/ amplifier/ interface for external hypertech
- Interacting/ influencing subjects in a VR construct/ simulation
- Interfaced with outside entity/ AI Daemon/ eldritch being/ spirit
Asset Power Level
- Individual person. Self or another.
- Group of people/ building
- community/ city block
- Neighborhood
- Sprawl zone/ district
- 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.
