CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE-Media and Magic

CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE

© Jerry Harris 2013

Published here as Open Game Content.

(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)

Overview Index

Background Index

MEDIA

The Net is a sea of information, news, and entertainment.  The creation and distribution of these ephemeral entities can give power and control over those who consume it.  While the Net is pervasive and everyone a potential broadcaster, all national broadcasters are tightly regulated, propaganda arms of the government and Corporations.  So, it’s not that different from today, though there is easier access to hard core porn thanks to greatly relaxed broadcast standards. 

One thing that has changed is the use of copyrighted music, characters, movies, and shows, and all live, broadcast events.  All of that has been locked down and are now only available as pay-per-view.  Individuals are no longer capable of owning any media.  Media Pirates on offshore platforms, ships, and even space stations have a booming business broadcasting illegally obtained material and intercepted transmissions.  They undercut the extravagant rates of the media giants and are the heroes of anybody with an illegal media receiver translator box. 

Shutting down these Pirates is a difficult proposition, even for the all-powerful Corporations.  One, they’re in International areas, and some are protected by foreign nations.  Two, they’re popular with the citizens.  Shutting them down might cause a riot.  Three, the Media Pirates have intercepted all sorts of transmissions from Corp-America.  They’ve gotten a hold material that’s potentially embarrassing to high officials and have the capacity to broadcast it.  So, the media companies just have to content themselves with trying to make the Pirate broadcasts unreliable and trying to keep their own material safe.

There are still classic websites out there.  They’ve been supplemented by all sorts of feeds and interactions.  They’re still a good way of getting news and basic information.  The characters will be interested in the B-Board, the more-or-less unofficial daily news site of the Shadow World.  Reputations are made and broken there.   

MAGIC

The Old Ways have mostly fallen into obsolesce.  Great magical works have crumbled and most of the mightier spells have been lost.  Inherently magical ancient Elves may only perform magic as parlor tricks.  Their few children may not even know how to cast a spell and have no interest in doing so.  For all appearances, it is a mundane post-industrial world. 

But those born with the magic trait and sufficient training can still be quite useful, especially in the Shadow World where the characters live.  It can give the Occultist character a unique edge in the modern world, which few others have, and, more importantly, few defend against.  The search for old spell books and magical knowledge is a constant quest for these characters.  The Old Ways are still followed to interact with things that technology can’t hack, such as the supernatural (ghosts, speaking to the dead).  Some innovating practitioners are even working at adding magic to enhance technology. 

There is still Forbidden magic in the world, though outlawed by International conventions.  Those idiots at the Parasol Corporation, for unknowable reasons, just had to release a zombie plague that killed nearly a million people.  The virus used was a weaponized version of the Animate Dead spell spread by aerosol spray, as well as waterborne contamination. 

After that incident, all high-level spells (6^th level and up) and any necromatic spells, which had been fairly easily available up to that point, were wiped off the Net and destroyed in libraries, public and private.  Keep in mind that magic was an old curiosity up to that point, since so few people practiced it.  Now, there are only a few hidden copies in private hands, and rumors of a Vatican archive.  A few governments, of course, have their own copies.  All magic schools are now regulated.  Even the Humanoid nations abide by these conventions, though the Radicals would be willing to use any weapon (except they’re not smart enough on their own to do so).