CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE
© Jerry Harris 2013
(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)
STATUS
Your characters have undergone Identity Death and been Blacked Out from legal society. You’re a Zero. You have no rights. How did this happen? Well, there are three main causes.
The Last War got a bit confusing at the end. A lot of soldiers and civilians got Blacked Out from being incorrectly listed as dead. Many Halflings and Gnomes have had a similar experience. (On the flip side, many members of these groups have been listed as alive, even though they didn’t survive, and are thus prime sources of fake ID’s.) Most Blacked Out Halflings and Gnomes at least had a strong racial community to fall back on. Most of the war survivors of other races didn’t.
People who have crossed or double-crossed powerful people and organizations have also found themselves Blacked Out. Their electronic identities have been erased from the supposedly tamperproof master national database and they’ve ceased to exist. Trying to regain it again is almost impossible. Murder, assassination, and even prosecution and prolonged jail time are considered a lot more messy means of dealing with enemies. If you have the power (either directly or through subordinates or by favors), it’s a lot easier and cleaner just to delete your minor enemies.
Of course, not everyone wants to be a part of the system to begin with. The term “Zero” and whatever community there is of them was started by individuals who illegally dropped out of society. They might have been paranoids or people who had quite legitimate fears of persecution. Many were of a libertarian bent, who just disliked the constant monitoring and surveillance. This was how they fought back.
One thing that many Zeroes have in common is that they are highly skilled. This may have been what got them in trouble in the first place, but those skills have allowed them to make a career out of being non-existent. Whether the characters’ condition is voluntary or not, there is a heady sense of freedom from being a Zero, that the rest of society, even those at the highest levels, don’t have. The Shadow World is by and large a desperate pool of the dispossessed using fake and stolen identification and highly specialized and potentially dangerous skills to survive.
The people of live in the Shadow World have skills that make them a dangerous threat to society in general and can disappear at will. Some wonder openly why the Corporations allow this malignant anomaly on the public to exist. Is it because they want these Zeroes out there to do their dirty work? If there’s another reason, it could only be indifference.
Information is power, money, and influence. Acquiring it is like stealing a dragon’s hoard. Tapping the right information source, gaining access to the right network, can make your reputation in the Shadows, make you rich, and get you out of the Shadows. Of course, it also makes you enemies. The people you’re stealing from will kill you immediately for what you’ve done to them, unless you give them a powerful reason not to.
Living in the Shadows is a tough life with little to no hope of getting out of it. Thanks to your special talents and skills, you at least have some value. Others will pay handsomely for your services, but you’ll have to risk life and limb to earn it. You have the ability to get vengeance on those in power who’ve done you and your friends wrong, but you’ll live longer not reminding your powerful enemies that still exist. If you get the right information and access, you make a score big enough with an electronic heist to be set up for life or information sensitive enough to force someone to bargain for it.
Your experienced characters usually have some arrangements set up for food, shelter, electronic service, and utilities. This may be by small-time digital theft or through quid pro quo favors. But for a job, you’ll always need funds. Characters can go bankrupt or into debt. Neither condition should end their careers. They can always barter their services.
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