Neon City 2099

Rae Nedjadi

Overview

In a world that never sees the sun, neon lights cut through hearts and souls of revolutionaries! In pouring rain, light cycles race through narrow alleys, chasing down fragile hope. Can we honor fallen comrades and tear down the Mega-Corp? Will we free the city from greed and corruption? When avatars are activated and systems of power are hacked, neon swords come to life!

Principles

Reveal the Cruelty and Warmth of the City

Neon City is dangerous and people are driven to desperation. Illegal street races blend the virtual and the real, obsolete war droids are enslaved by fight clubs. But bustling night markets are full of friendly vendors, and holo-tattoo parlors give you a new face when you’re outrunning the authorities. In Neon City, it’s easy to get in over your head, but it’s just as easy to find a flirty new friend!

Bleed Neon and Cool

When the acid rain bleeds neon onto the streets, do we find shelter in each other’s arms? When changing your body is only as hard as getting the creds, how do you express your heart and transcend humanity? When your avatar comes to life, how does the augmented world reveal your hidden desires?

Build a Revolution on Its People

You were radicalized by the cruelty of the Mega-Corp, but you can’t fight with righteous anger alone. A revolution is only as strong as its people, and winning the war will mean winning hearts. Help a struggling neighborhood sabotage the demolition drones that tear down their homes! Infiltrate a corp sector and free an executive who fell in love with you! Start up a hackette haven and build a mech that will pummel the Mega-Corp!

Setting

Neon City is a megalopolis with buildings that stretch hundreds of stories up. The Mega-Corp openly controls politics, authority, and all forms of power. Each executive owns a sector and has been gifted technology, professionals, and assets to bleed their territory dry. Once a neighborhood is brought to its knees, the Mega-Corp builds over it, restructures itself, and salvages what’s left. It’s brutal, dehumanizing, and merciless.

The Mega-Corp sees people as commodities. Lives are traded by perceived value, advertisement campaigns program the populace, and propaganda maintains compliance and obscures the truth. The Mega-Corp is a machine that seeks to outlive us all. But we’re here to break that machine—forever.

On the edges of the city, diverse communities live on what they can scavenge and build together. These communities are thousands of people strong, each with their own factions, cultures, and laws. People navigate social circles with grace and daring, cashing in debts and building networks of favors. The PCs can define a community or agree to come from different ones and build an underground together.

Life on the fringes is about survival. Light cycle gangs stare down the Mega-Corp to protect their territory and each other. People are wary and resilient, each bearing the trauma inflicted by the Mega-Corp. But people are also loving and full of hope, compassionate when their trust is earned.

Salvaging and repurposing technology is the heart of the revolution. This could involve transferring a soul into a mechanical body to uncover secrets, helping an AI realize their pop idol dreams, or stealing Mega-Corp augments to rebuild themselves. It could also mean creating the perfect date in virtual reality and charming the cute private detective!

As oppressive and cruel as the Mega-Corp is, many support and uphold its injustice. They fight for scraps, seek to get ahead, and serve as lackeys. They’re content to perpetuate cycles of use and abuse, and are more dangerous and sinister than those who hold power. But they all hope for something better. Can you get past their fear to reveal the truth of their hearts?

Campaigns

Idol Talk

The PCs have infiltrated the entertainment complex of the Mega-Corp. AIs are created to spread propaganda by using emotion amplification technology to manipulate the populace. Can the PCs help the AIs discover love and free them of their shackles?

Adventure Ideas:

Sofia Strawberry’s concerts draw in millions. Her digitized likeness is on every advertising board and in every bedroom. Rumors say she’s fallen in love with Isa Canon, a hotshot lightracer forced to run fixed races for the Mega-Corp. Can the PCs bring the two together and help love save them both?

It’s the 50th annual battle of the bands, and all of Neon City will tune in. Promising musician-warriors will flood the netscape with music in this month-long competition, and they’re putting everything on the line. Only one band can join the ranks of the few human bands licensed to perform. But at each band elimination, souls are harvested for new Idol AIs that serve the Mega-Corp without question. Can the PCs outperform and survive, while saving everyone else from such a terrible fate?

Cerulean Sky was a digital idol scheduled for reformat. She escaped and was assimilated by an abandoned war rig from the long-ago conflict that created Neon City. Now she devastates the city, singing songs of pain while sowing destruction. Can the PCs convince the mecha that they are the singing pilots she’s been waiting for? Will their combined spirit summon the Void Sword that will protect the city?

Runaway Revolution

The PCs are one of many tasked to plant the seeds of dissent, desire, and revolution. We can birth this revolution if we bring all of Neon City together!

Adventure Ideas:

The Mega-Corp will reclaim the edges of the city, and has pledged to pave over those that live beyond corporate rule. Community leaders can’t agree on what to do next, and Reclaimers are on the way. Can the PCs fight back and bring communities together? What can they build to hold back the Mega-Corp?

Kora Flyn and her Dancing Devils are the rising stars of Neon City’s dangerous street races. They were Colony-Warriors, but they revolted and claimed the streets for their own. Can the PCs convince them to fight back and recruit other light racers to the cause? Can they impress them with sword fights that take place on a light cycle?

The Mega-Corp fears Hostile Corporate Rescues and the disruption to their systems and schedules. When an employee is brave enough to leave behind their life of monochrome servitude, they send out a signal and the PCs answer! The Corp Security is extreme, with strong women and cute AIs manning huge mechs and weapon systems. Can the PCs fight and flirt their way into building a rebellion, one rescue at a time?

Neon Noir Nights

The PCs have set up a detective agency in a sector that never stops raining. They help the disenfranchised and offer “special” services to fight for those who can’t. Can they stay one step ahead of the Mega-Corp lackeys while solving cases and capturing hearts?

Adventure Ideas:

A hacker shows up, bloody and bruised, her memory discs wiped clean. One of the PCs barely recognizes her before having their own memory of the relationship wiped in an instant. Who is she and what did she get caught up with?

An executive and secret contact calls the agency, her voice desperate and pleading. The holo-call is abruptly cut off. When the PCs arrive they find her body, but her soul node is missing. Where has she been downloaded to? Why are numerous androids holding corrupted fragments of her soul?

An android arrives, claiming to house the soul of a former lover. They were once a detective of the agency but disappeared, chasing down a dangerous case. They say they were murdered but can’t remember who did it and how. They only know that the murderer has stolen a black box full of Mega-Corp secrets.

Characters

Fringe Communities

Quela Canto (she/her): Quela brought together communities and made them agree to a code of protection and mutual support. She ensures folks are healthy and their augments are cared for. Once the Mega-Corp’s most powerful executive, Quela is as careful with her past as with her heart. Quela dresses in ragged silks that complement her dark complexion and wears honey rain perfume. Her sword is an elegant vibra-blade that sings against the air and cuts steel.

Will Quela allow the PCs to help her and the communities? Will she stand in the way of the rebellion, choosing safety instead?

The Fixer (zi/zir): The Fixer is a mysterious figure who hides zir features behind a huge flashing emoticon mask and layers of neon avatars. Zir synthetic voice changes between conversations, from a cutesy Japanese accent all the way to a creepy gregorian choir. The Fixer can get anything that anyone needs, as long as they’re willing to pay the price—sometimes a hot date! The Fixer’s sword is comically large and impossible for most to carry, its neon blade shining bright pink, blue, and white. With every slash, zi releases a torrent of holo emojis, overwhelming zir opponent!

When the Fixer’s past catches up with zir, how will it compromise the PCs? When the Fixer finally reveals zir true identity, will one (or more) PCs recognize zir as a former lover?

Mega-Corp

The Champion (she/her): The Champion once had a name, but it was lost in the years spent battling in holo-arenas. She is the most powerful gladiator of her generation, her body made up of the augments and machinery of those too weak to stand against her. She secretly loves the trashiest vid-novels, especially those featuring hot detective ladies and daring rebels. Her sword’s hilt is the last Champion’s bio-mech hand, its blade is electric neon lightning bright enough to fill an entire stadium.

Can the Champion break the shackles of the Mega-Corp? Will she find love like she’s always dreamed of, or will one of the PCs break her fragile heart?

Mistress Anderson (she/her, they/them, Mistress): The Mistress pulls all the strings from the shadows, creating puppet executives and grooming politicians to be her trembling pets. Dressed in chrome bondage and thick red rope accentuating her generous curves and lavender skin, they have the beauty of a venus flytrap. The Mistress watches the PCs eagerly, collecting every bit of surveillance footage and netscape trace. She secretly writes trashy vid-novels about rebels crushing the Mega-Corp, her heart yearning to be dominated by a rebel. The Mistress prefers to use a sword whip, its many tiny blades humming ozone and leaking pink acid.

How long can Mistress Anderson hold to cold power before giving in to the warm fire of rebellion? When the Mistress is ordered to take on a new form more pleasing to the Mega-Corp, will the PCs help her see her true beauty?

Rebels

Sabotage (no pronouns): Sabotage was once many different androids. An entire battalion ran away from a war fought on distant planets, refusing to use what little time they had in manufactured bodies to fight for the Mega-Corp. The androids escaped and downloaded themselves into a sentient space cruiser and crash landed near Neon City. From the wreckage, a new body was built; the AIs joined together as one being known now as Sabotage. Sabotage is determined to destroy the Mega-Corp, no matter the cost. Sabotage bears a sword made from fallen comrades, a perpetual reminder of steel and neon that vengeance is the answer. Sabotage resents the inconvenient emotions and yearning inside, blaming flawed code. To conclusively prove that love is not important, Sabotage will grudgingly try dating.

Can Sabotage set aside vengeance and fall in love? When Sabotage is overwhelmed by the trauma of the war, how will the PCs help?

Calyx Tenjou (she/her): Calyx is the fiercest cycle-blade and fights all who would dare to dethrone her. She will take down every cycle-blade that works for the Mega-Corp, no matter the toll on her body and soul. She switches bodies after every race, burning through them as her memories slowly fade. Soon there will be nothing left but her burning passion to crush the competition, unless she learns that kissing on a light cycle running at high speeds is glorious. Calyx’s void-black fencing sword bleeds holographic starlight and white holo-roses.

Will any of the PCs win Calyx’s runaway heart? When Calyx is defeated by the Mega-Corp’s ruthless android driver, how will the PCs convince the two rivals to open their hearts to each other?

Names

• Alice Ang
• Athena Steel
• Bunny Daemon
• Hana Rodriguez
• Leona Serif
• Malika Bennet
• Maria Isabel Qian
• Marla Zielinski
• Nano Diesel
• Noelle Starlight
• Octavia Fujiwara
• Pinball Princess
• Psycho Saint
• San Guoliang
• Santiago Kojima
• Spitfyre
• Supersonic
• SynthWave
• The Doctorette
• The Night Raven
• Vapor Kyd Midnight
• Varushka Arranz
• Verona Moneaux
• Whiskey Zero
• Wisteria Tokyo