CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE
© Jerry Harris 2013
(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)
Background Info
Lila Magonel, a Half-Elf, was a rising star programmer for
the high-tech company, U-Tech.
Brilliant, but by Corporate standards, too eccentric. They eventually dismissed her for not
producing marketable work. But Lila
wasn’t finished with her research into total consciousness upload. First, she’d ripped off U-Tech for money and
equipment during her employment. They
may have turned a blind eye to it while she was there. If she came up with anything on her own, they
might sue her later. On the other hand,
she was also having an affair with the CEO, Milo Sanders.
Via an anonymous contributor, Lila also received a large
grant of funds. This was courtesy of,
outlaw arcane hacker, the Neural-mancer.
Or in this case, a Meat Puppet of the Neural-mancer. The real thing is only vaguely aware of his
Puppets’ actions. Consciousness upload
is also his area of specialty. The
Puppet, perhaps infatuated with Lila and/or her research, essentially partnered
with her. Lila had no qualms about
stringing along another resourceful suitor.
Needing some muscle for a job, Lila made contact with the Radical
Humanoid Movement. She acquired
(from the Meat Puppet) a dangerous computer virus (Black Ice-potentially
lethal cyber attack software) and offered it her contact, a Half-Orc named, Man-Zero
(that’s his Clan Tag, not his real name).
For his part, Lila needed specific magic item stolen from Ophidian, the
mysterious Corporate magnate. Man-Zero
kept up his end, but Lila never entirely delivered on her end. Theoretically, the Humanoids were supposed to
be providing security for Lila at her lab.
Man-Zero was also infatuated enough with Lila to take any risk for her,
including a dangerous theft. She did not
reciprocate his passion, however.
Lila was also well aware of Supreme, the master
computer for Incom and an Artificial Intelligence that has achieved
sentience. She managed to hack one of
it’s remote, subordinate processors for more processing power. Her access was discovered by the A.I.
Having just finished a critical upload experiment, Lila was
murdered at her lab. She had just
finished uploading her own personality as a test. The killer then took her computer with all of
her research, and took the special, magic device she was using for the test,
the Drow Soul Crystal. There were
no signs of forced entry or that the lab had been ransacked. The body showed no signs of physical
distress. The multiple video cam’s
simply showed her dying, alone, while hooked up to her exotic machine. Seemed like an open and shut case for the
police, who quickly closed it. Perhaps,
too quickly?
So, whodunit? We have
plenty suspects. Well, I’m not going to
tell you. It’s for you (the Ref) to
decide and for those sneaky players, who might be reading this, to find
out. What I am going to do is setup
encounters that include possible clues, red herrings (false clues), twists, and
complications. From this, you’ll
hopefully be able to mix and match elements (along with your own ideas), to
create a unique adventure. You decide on
the killer and how many encounters you want.
Want a full blown, complex mystery, with blind alleys and twists? Use the 48-hour time limit and do it. Want a short adventure that gets to the
point? No problem, use the 24-hour time
limit. You can even repurpose unused
encounters for another adventure.
Frankly, this adventure could go off the rails in any number
of places. You’re going to have to be
flexible running this. If the characters
get totally off track or don’t know what to do, then Virtual Lila NPC should
make an appearance at that point to nudge them along. Or perhaps, the characters are suddenly
attacked by a fairly weak force that can be interrogated and point them where
they should go next.
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