Tuesday, June 29, 2021

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

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

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

Interview on the Monastery Podcast

  Earlier this week, I had the good pleasure of interviewing on the Monastery Podcast with Mildra the Monk about Chromatic Shadows. We cove...