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 spent in pursuit of this power. Any Megacorp that unlocks these secrets, and spins them into a global commodity, will dominate their rivals.
Occult Assets are extraordinarily powerful, inestimably 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 Sprawl is always shaken up by this change in power dynamic.
The following is a descriptive list of 8 Occult Assets for Chromatic Shadows (but suitable for other cyberpunk/ urban fantasy games). The fallout from a single one of these artifacts can propel an adventure or mini campaign over multiple sessions of play.
1. DEVOURING HAND
DESCRIPTION
A cyberarm built from offworld metals possesses uncanny properties: holographic intelligence & self arrangement. The ability to “repair” itself. This prosthesis creates many possibilities for military tech as well as armor & protective shielding.
EFFECT
Nanite modules allow for the cyberware to “repair itself”. If the user's meatbody suffers garm, the cyberware begins to repair damaged organic injury too. Injured tissue is replaced with threads and modules of machinic components.The only way a cyborg can be killed is to utterly destroy it with an explosion, melt it, decapitate it, or target its heart. If the cyborg is ever reduced to 0 Unity/ 12 Strain it becomes totally inhuman. If its a PC, the character is no longer playable.
ACTIVATION KEY
None, other than the standard Unity loss/ Strain value (with a bonus to reduce). The cyberlimb simply needs to be installed in a user in order to work. However, as the users body is replaced with living machinery, it requires the user to “feed” on an energy source in order to remain active (see below).
COMPLICATION
As the cyborg’s body becomes artificial, it gradually becomes reliant on external energy sources to function. They must “eat” electricity [a number of times a day equal to ½ its strain value] in order to power their cybernetics. And are therefore forced to seek out ever more potent sources of electricity lest their systems power down over the course of the next 6 hours [lose a die of willpower per hour, at 0, the cyborg is dormant].
HOOK
A cyborg is rampaging through the sprawl, devouring energy sources. Cars batteries are being stolen, and transfer stations broken into. This activity draws the attention of the Proxy’s who hire a runner team to investigate.
2. HEAD OF GOD
DESCRIPTION
Desiccated head on top of a box of tech. If hooked up with a living subject via a DNI link, the head sings a rapturous alien song, or utters strange glossolalia. Anyone who hears it is mesmerized and stricken with awe.
EFFECT
Each time it sings or speaks those that hear it are swept into religious rapture. Out of body experiences, psychedelic bliss, hallucinations, etc. The head inevitably gathers a herd of cultish followers obsessed with re-experiencing its intoxicating effects, likening it to religious rapture.
ACTIVATION KEY
The head's abilities are powered by the “life force” of victims. DNI trodes are plugged into the box and then attached to a victim's temple, where there vitality is drained away. They aren’t killed however, as the head is powered by a subjects mental energy. Victim's minds and memories are being erased as a result.
COMPLICATION
As the head's cult becomes more fanatical, they are increasingly compelled to abduct and sacrifice victims. Typically these victims are drawn from the lowest strata of society, and are seldom missed. Occasionally a notable citizen falls to the depredations of the cult, and draws the attention of law enforcement or the megacorps.
HOOK
A strange mental illness is sweeping the Barrens. Its victims are only capable of mumbling gibberish and singing an alien melody--all victims of the Head of God. A dangerous neotribal cult is responsible. Their members believe the Head prophesied an impending apocalypse and the cult “priests” are appointed to interpret its utterances. In order to escape the impending doom, more “holy victims” must be sacrificed.
3. GHOST TREE
DESCRIPTION
A pale white tree grows in darkness, and its threads corrupt a subterranean area. Tendrils of dark influence creep above ground into the sprawl. Animal life in local parks, or vacant lots have begun to exhibit strange effects. Neighborhoods are falling into corruption.
EFFECT
From its underground position, the “tree” spreads like a mycelium colony. Webs of ghostly fiber penetrate the ground and thread upward into the world above. Ultimately these filaments rapidly bloom above ground into strange waxy vines that produce a red fleshy berry. These berries smell strongly of rotting meat, and as such attract the attention of hungry animal life. Any being that consumes this fruit, (or consumes an animal that has fed upon the fruit), begins to share in a “hive intelligence”. Each being shares a psychic link with each other being in the network. They become passively aware of any threats that any one of the beings might experience, and experience their thoughts as a whisper in their minds. As an action any being can look out of the eyes and experience the senses of another being in the network for as long as they concentrate.
ACTIVATION KEY
A berry must be consumed or an animal that has eaten the berry. Within a few hours, the creature becomes psychically aware of the others in the network.
COMPLICATION
As beings fall under the influence of the tree, they become increasingly aggressive. They will never willingly leave the corrupted zone, and become consumed with a single minded desire to defend the tree from threats. The tree can "call" out to its thralls in the network, and command them to its defense. Any creature under its influence obeys immediately.
HOOK
The tree came about as an experiment of the effects of alien energy sources upon plant and fungal organisms. A botched experiment caused an explosive growth of alien foliage that rapidly began corrupting the research team. Those that survived, abandoned their secret facility, fleeing for their lives. The underground lab is overrun now, and the Ghost Tree stands at its center. The infestation is expanding further outward, with a little more growth every day. Animals have begun to act strangely aggressive. People have gone missing. The megacorps have taken notice. Its just a matter of time before a runner crew is sent in to investigate.
4. REALITY KNIFE
DESCRIPTION
A blade made from extra dimensional crystal that flows and ripples like liquid. It radiates colors from within, and seems to flicker in and out of phase.
EFFECT
The blade stabs through a fold in space-time in order to slay a remote target. To the Reality Knife distance and objects are no obstacle.
ACTIVATION KEY
User spends a full round “attuning” the knife to a physical specimen of the target (something containing the target's DNI, less than 48 hours old). A ghostly image of the target soon appears in the user's minds eye. Grasping the knife, the user strikes at its target.
COMPLICATION
When the reality knife is used to attack a remote target, it also kills a portion of local reality. The “hole” in reality that the knife slips through becomes tainted. A permanent “dead zone” [radius in yards equal to Damage] manifests where the knife is used. Plant life withers and dies. Paint begins to peel. Wood rots. Metal rusts. Any non living substances that remain in the dead zone rapidly decay under the effects of accelerated entropy. The knife takes a toll on the user too. Every time it is used a Willpower check must be made (Threshold 4). Failure means a point of Unity is lost. As the users unity slips away, their identity becomes more occulted, until no one remembers them or who they ever were. Eventually the user becomes ‘out of phase’ and slips out of reality altogether.
HOOK
An assassin kills a high ranking corporate target with a knife to the heart, but there is no evidence of the crime. The victim remains behind locked doors, cameras are blank. The victim simply doubles over and dies from the slash of a blade that isn’t there. A team of runners are allied in to investigate.
5. CLONING PODS
DESCRIPTION
Two pod like chambers large enough to accommodate a single human, each situated at a different, remote location in the sprawl.
EFFECT
A creature enters into the origin pod and its form and essence is fully recreated in the secondary pod. The result is a nearly perfect simulacra of the test subject, complete with all previous memories, and full consciousness. The clone’s personality is nearly identical to its originator, but there are subtle, disturbing, differences that begin to manifest as time goes on.
ACTIVATION KEY
The user simply enters the origin pod, the door seals shut. An encrypted activation sequence is engaged from a local computer terminal. The whole process takes nearly 10 minutes to power up, activate, and cycle down. If the process is interrupted in any way, the result is a failure, or perhaps something worse results.
COMPLICATION
Subjects have secretly volunteered to test a highly experimental “telepod” with the ability to teleport a user from one place to another instantaneously. But this is a misleading lie. The pod is not a transporter at all. The person in the origin pod is led to believe the device “doesn’t work”, and is released from the experiment. However, they have in fact been cloned, and their double on the other end is being detained and studied in an underground lab. These doubles believe themselves to be the “original” and have no knowledge of the other. The doubles begin to manifest strange physical and social traits. They are stronger, smarter, colder, lack empathy, are prone to bouts of cruelty and violence. If a double were to ever see its original self, they are immediately compelled to attack and destroy them.
HOOK
One of the doubles escapes from confinement and returns to his family. Meanwhile the original finds out there is someone who looks just like him living with his wife and children. Terrified, he goes into hiding. A rival corp discovers this, and hires a team of runners to investigate.
6. DEMON SOCIAL MEDIA APP
DESCRIPTION
An experimental social media platform is conducting its beta launch with a network of select users. Using standard iPilot trode interface, the app allows for the capture and sharing of short bursts of “stim-sense” over a network without the need for an elaborate stim-sense rig. “Stim-Toks” provide 6 second blasts of high intensity emotional and sensory data to a user. Users can experience the same loop over and over, or “swipe left” to stim numerous loops in rapid succession.
EFFECT
High intensity stim-tock binging creates a rush of euphoria that chases peak after emotional peak. Rapid fire clips of the most intense, disassociated, and unfiltered emotional and sensory experiences creates a rush that overwhelms the user until they are mentally and emotionally exhausted. A few minutes later, they’re ready to do it all over again.
ACTIVATION KEY
The user’s access to stims are gated behind how many clips they themselves upload and how many “likes & shares” they garner. Every stim-binge session, requires the user to upload their own clip first--and that clip must receive a certain amount of “likes” in order to unlock the highest tier stims. Recognized status within the app allows for the highest tier access. The interface forces the addict to upload as many clips as they can, so that they themselves can freely experience the clips that they desperately crave.
COMPLICATION
Users become utterly addicted to the euphoria of the new tech, going into violent withdrawal if they can't get it every few minutes. An Eldritch Entity is imprisoned within the server farm with weird tech & runes and its corrupting energy is being amplified and broadcast through the app.
HOOK
A rash of bizarre crimes have broken out across the sprawl as the app forces the users to escalate more and more reckless activities. Kids in particular are getting hurt, while putting themselves in increasingly harmful situations in order to achieve the most intense and highly rated 6 second emotional peak. As the user base of the app grows, so does the Entity’s power grow, straining its bonds. More powerful restraining runes and tech are required to contain it, and even these are becoming less secure.
7. SCANNER CHIP
DESCRIPTION
An experimental neuro-chip is implanted in a user’s brain producing telepathic powers. The chip patches directly into a user’s neuromesh, requiring precise and potentially dangerous cyber-surgical implantation. Once the chip is installed, it is very difficult to remove without harming the subject. Megacorps are secretly developing this technology to create a class of to psychic spies.
EFFECT
With a moment’s concentration, the user can pry the thoughts from a target’s mind. Surface thoughts are easily revealed, and deeper secrets can be uncovered with more time and effort spent.
ACTIVATION KEY
The user simply looks at the target and concentrates briefly in order to establish mental contact. Additionally the user needs to be within 100 feet of the target or else contact is broken. Intervening objects typically don’t interfere with the scanning ability, although scanning through lead is nearly impossible.
COMPLICATION
The more the implant is used, the more it causes distress in the user. Users begin to suffer a low mutter of mental voices, that escalate into a cacophony. As time passes, user loses the ability to filter out individual minds. The clashing thoughts from every passing person becomes unbearable. In order to make these voices stop, some scanners have lost control, psychically lashing out at innocent people.
HOOK
A test group suffered a psychotic break and escaped into the sprawl, isolating themselves away from the “voices”. But they have left harm in their wake. In their efforts to escape their captors, they have left several corporate agents, and more than a few civilians catatonic or dead. They are deep in hiding now, hoping to isolate themselves until they can figure out how to remove the implants & stop the psychic trauma.
8. DIMENSIONAL NEEDLE
DESCRIPTION
A large blocky cannon extends from a cube of esoteric machinery. The device shoots a beam of dark energy that pierces through the skin of reality, opening a portal to the Outside Realms. Within these realms, research teams launch missions to recover alien artifacts and powerful objects, but risk drawing the attention of deadly xenothreats.
EFFECT
As long as the energy beam is active the door is held open, allowing for two way access to an interdimensional space. Beings can pass from our realms into the alien shadowy landscape of the Outside, and beings from the Outside can pass into our reality.
ACTIVATION KEY
The Needle draws on a tremendous amount of energy power to operate, requiring an external power source, often tapping into a local power grid. Widespread power outages, and shortages are common in the sprawl zone during the window of time that the needle operates.
COMPLICATION
The Outside Realms, is a hostile environment. Any explorer must contend with the treacherous landscape, the poisonous atmosphere, and the imminent danger of xenothreats. Humans are required to wear protective suits to filter toxins, protect from radiation, and provide breathable oxygen. Eldritch entities haunt the Outside, and are drawn to portals, and explorer teams. Each team has only a short window of time to explore before they are withdraw to safety
HOOK
Needle operators are using the portals to salvage for hypertech and alien objects. Sensors go off when a xenothreat gets close--explorers are immediately withdrawn, and the gate is rapidly shut. But sometimes, teams can’t get out fast enough. Recently a large team of explorers who were carrying a trove of valuable artifacts were lost. However, drones have detected their signal. It was discovered that the team is sealed within a strange geometrical hive-like structure. Their vital signs are active, all of them were alive & healthy, but they aren’t answering comms. The corps are prepared to make one last attempt at saving the team (and their valuable cache) by sending an experienced runner team into the breach.
