Chromatic Shadows: New Directions

 

Dmitri Kolinchenko

After some serious reflection and long conversations with playtesters and friends close to the project, I've decided to take the meta-plot of Chromatic Shadows in a decidedly different direction. The goal is to pivot away from what was previously more of a "traditional" cyberpunk setting, and steer it toward a vision more closely tied to the occult elements that have played a big role from the start. It's my hope that changing directions this way will help distinguish the game within the genre, and further center themes of weirdness and cosmic horror.

Previously established lore isn't changing so much as the timeline is being fast forwarded. In doing so, the world changes, and so do many of the assumptions of play. Characters are no longer "cyberrunners" working for the Megacorps, motivated by profit. They retain the same basic skills sets, but instead become "Street Operators" out to make their mark in the near-future gig economy. The runner scene is ten years dead, and the Megacorps who propped it up collapsed under their own weight. But the weird is still out there, hidden, unaccounted for, haunting the Sprawl.

 

Key Changes

• The setting shifts to "occult cyberpunk after the fall". During the course of the Shadow War, the Megacorps trigger a catastrophic accident. Millions are killed. International condemnation send these companies into a death spiral. Corporate leadership is arrested. Stock goes toxic. Shareholders abandon ship in droves. The Megacorps crash and burn to the ground.

• The timeline picks up a decade later. All of those black sites where numerous  Occult Assets have been developed, were hastily bricked over and abandoned. Innumerable weird and dangerous experiments have been left to rot in the Sprawl. All of the weird stuff is out there and the Factions are trying to claim them for their own nefarious purposes. Neighborhoods and local communities are caught in the crossfire.

• The secret leaders of the corps and several other clandestine parties re-form into smaller occult Factions with narrower goals. Each Faction is highly motivated to seek out and use these Occult Assets but their motivations, goals, and philosophical outlook are all markedly different.
  

• These lost Assets are having an ambient effect of the Sprawl. Supernatural events are getting more frequent. The Strange is getting harder to ignore. The characters are cyberpunk Street Operators with a Weird Attractor. They are drawn to the mysteries like a moth to flame. As the weirdness multiplies, they are swept into the orbit of these powerful Occult Assets and Factional intrigues. With enough grit and chrome these Street Operators might even beat back the darkness.