Hello,
It has been quite a while since we last posted on the blog. Haven't had time to write a blog post since then due to lots of personal events and our busy work schedules. We have been working on Cybergothica, playtesting it here and there to see what works and what doesn't, making improvements as we go. It has been decided to put the core rules in one book and split the lore section into its own book. The Core Rulebook will have some references to the lore that we made, but most of it will be in the First World Book, which will be set in Nu-Orleans and the surrounding area.
This post is just to give a quick summary of the world of Cybergothica pertaining to Nu-Orleans up to the United Mega-States of Dixie where it resides. This was written at various points of the month, so apologies for any inconsistencies in the voice and structure of the blog.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF CYBERNETICS
The Past of Cybergothica starts with a Future of our own Information Age. The Golden Age of Cybernetics, which began when the first commercial Cyberware was sold to the public in 2027 A.D. and ended in 2290 A.D. when the first of many new nation-states arose, was a time of great technological marvels and a time of great oppression of the human soul. The human body could be modified with ease and vast worlds of information and parallel realities were available at the tip of a finger. But humanity as a whole became enslaved to faceless Mega-Corps who came about when governments outsourced governance after a time of extreme strife and cultures were buried to make way for sterile hypercommercialism and a rampant surveillance state. People labored for their managers in long hours for little pay and could be used for terrible covert or even overt experiments that stretched the human mind and body to torturous limits. For two centuries the world was ruled with an iron fist by their new overlords who ruled through giving addictive pleasures to those who obeyed them and destroyed those who resisted, with no moral law getting in the way of the Mega-Corps' single-minded desires for growth, power, and subjugation.
The Golden Age of Cybernetics ended in decay and atrophy, as the infrastructure and systems that once supported the Mega-Corps collapsed. It wasn't the doings of grizzled cyberpunks with hardcore software and bad attitudes that brought the Mega-Corp control of the world down, but rather a generational brain drain, ill-maintained global network that shattered, and the Mega-Corps' inability to stamp out the resurgence of various nationalist and socialist movements. Some conspiracy theorists and folk historians speculate that the Golden Age of Cybernetics died when the materialist Corporate Suits came face to face with things they could not comprehend and more importantly, control.
THE CYBERGOTHIC AGE
The Cybergothic Age, which is commonly considered to have started in 2290 A.D., is an age rife with deathly secrets and desperation. The newer generations who seized power from the Mega-Corps built their new civilizations on top of older, dead societies that hated the newcomers and haunted the new age through ghosts, traps, and horrors that strain one's faith in humanity. Much technological knowledge was lost due to the Mega-Corps during the Golden Age of Cybernetics being obsessed with tight copyright protections, but also from the general populace of that time having little ability or desire to learn to maintain the systems that kept their standard of living and the toys that amused them. Over time, those older technologies and infrastructure that could not be repaired or recycled were either buried underneath the foundation of the new age or contained if it was considered malevolent.
Mega-States, Federal Socialist Republics, Technates, and Free Arks now dominate where the Mega-Corps once ruled. Each of these political structures has their own way of dealing with the Mega-Corps they superseded, how they handle technologies such as Digital Mindloading, Unchained (Free) Robots, and Gateware, and how they view things considered abnormal or even supernatural.
The people of the Cybergothic Age would be considered more primitive, crude, and superstitious by their Golden Age ancestors; outside of medical advancements, entertainment, Cyberware, and some hi-tech hardware here or there, most of the residents live a standard of life similar to that of the late 20th and 21st century. People now look over their shoulders on the lookout for haunts and horrors that may or may not exist. The most advanced technologies, Hemotechnology and Gateware, are based on ill understood principles and some whisper that arcane methods were used in their creations.
But while the people of this age would be considered less advanced than the people that lived during the Golden Age, the Cybergothic Age is much freer and self-sufficient. Cybergothic equipment is easier to repair, not bogged down by license or copyright issues, and most items of the Cybergothic Age do not come with Wireless Network chips that can spy on the user or even shut down the item for any reason the Mega-Corp sees fit. Planned obsolescence was considered Faux Pas in a world that struggled to maintain its grip on any technology and resources. Even the most authoritarian Mega-State of Today would balk at the extremes of surveillance and terror the average Mega-Corp of Yesterday inflicted on its people for the name of profit. Anyone trying to recreate the old Golden Age and its horrors would in their arrogance and naivete come face to face with the horrors of the Cybergothic Age, waiting behind twisted forests, forgotten alleyways, and mosquito-ridden swamps.
NU-ORLEANS
Most of the action in Cybergothica takes place in Louisiana, particularly the semi-autonomous Ark (Cybergothica's word for an Arcology) of Nu-Orleans and its surrounding areas. Once nicknamed New Orleans, the city always had a history full of color and superstition even as the Mega-Corps buried most of the city in high-rising buildings and interactive holographic advertisements. Many of the old landmarks like the French Quarter, cathedrals, and the many mausoleums are still standing despite many contradicting historical reports of their destruction or removal. The historical culture, dialect, and mystery of the city remained dormant for most of the Golden Age of Cybernetics that had tried to kill it, but the old city resurrected itself and outlived the sterile, safe city it was forced to be.
Nu-Orleans is an important port city for the Mega-State of Louisiana and has a heavy industrial presence in the region. The powerful Nu-Orleans branch of the Delacroix Family, who refined Hemotechnology and brought it to the wider market, considers Nu-Orleans its historical home. This makes this Arkology the richest in the Louisianan region, but Nu-Orleans is semi-autonomous and only nominally controlled by the Mega-State of Louisiana. Nu-Orleans has its own legal system, educational system, form of government, and even a paramilitary force under the command of the Mayor of Nu-Orleans, who is considered the absolute ruler of the Ark with a veneer of democracy. This has caused tensions with the greater Louisianan Mega-State, which has been partially eased by annual offerings of Reborn sent to staff Mega-State government jobs and the Armed Forces of Louisiana.
The Nu-Orleans Ark is divided into four vertical levels: the extravagant Pearly Gate level on the very top layer is home to the powerful who run the Nu-Orleans, the Diamond Level is not as influential as the Pearly Gates is but is still extremely wealthy and where many of the local surviving and newer Mega-Corps' headquarters are located, the Commercial Level just below is full of ambitious adventurers and unique opportunities, and finally, the Ground Level, known more commonly as the Bayou Level, is where the soul of Nu-Orleans lives. The Bayou Level is where the Things that Go Bump in the Dark call home but also where one can be closest to the soul of Nu-Orleans.
THE MEGA-STATE OF LOUISIANA
Despite the wealth Nu-Orleans brings from both its domestic economy and foreign trade, most of it is kept within the Ark and only roughly 5% of taxes and tariffs goes to the Mega-State of Louisiana, who only has nominal control over the wealthy port city. This means the Mega-State of Louisiana is considered one of the poorest Mega-States within the United Mega-States of Dixie, second only to the Mega-State of Mississippi. The poverty of the capital of Baton Rouge in contrast to its Nu-Orleans neighbor is a constant soar point for the Louisianan government, and only a yearly tribute of Reborn, bribes to the Louisianan Governor's Office every election season, and the ban on Nu-Orleans from having its own standing army (which the Ark gleefully circumnavigates whenever possible) has so far kept the peace between the Mega-State and semi-autonomous Ark.
Outside of a few areas such as Baton Rouge, Shreveport, and the recently constructed Iron Ark Sulfur, most of Louisiana is rural; with rural farmers and Neo-Aristocratic agricultural bestates dominating up north and Cajun Swampsteaders down south, most of the population is fairly spread out. Trade across the Mississippi and the Ouachita River is also equally as important for the Louisianan Economy, but river piracy, both by criminal and Mega-Corp interests, have become a concern for the beleaguered Louisianan government. Because of the Mega-State's border with the Imperial Republics of America, funding from the United Mega-States of Dixie into military industries and border security has also formed a significant chunk of Louisiana's economy. Iron Ark Sulfur was specifically created as a titanic military base to train and garrison soldiers from across Dixie in order to deter any Imperial aspirations.
Despite being home to the Delacroix Family, the pioneers of Hemoware and Gateware, the population surrounding Nu-Orleans and especially in northern Louisiana is heavily influenced by modern Neo-Puritan, ancient American Redneck and Hillbilly cultures. This has made them extremely weary of most non-medical Cyberware implants and extremely hi-
tech items. This is due to a history of intrusive surveillance, social engineering, and Mega-Corp and government oppression through the use of technology during the Golden Age of Cybernetics. Most of Louisiana is considered primitive and impoverished by 25th century standards, but only the foolish underestimate the folk that live deep in the woods or in old cities; old stories abound of cybernetic Mega-Corp mercenaries sent to purge rural hick settlements only to disappear and have their implants found later inside an alligator or wild hog, serving as a warning on the limits of technology in those parts of the land.
THE UNITED MEGA-STATES OF DIXIE
The United Mega-State of Louisiana and Nu-Orleans are together joined into a greater nation known as the United Mega-States of Dixie, comprised of the American South of the former United States of America. The UMSD strikes a delicate political and cultural balance. On one hand, it takes the rebellious nature and desire for great local State Rights of the old Confederate States of America. On the other, it must come to term with the historical topic of slavery of Africans, especially since much of the South in the Cybergothic Age has a large African-American population whether as descendants from the slaves or through mass migrations from Africa, Caribbeans, or Europe during the Information and Golden Age. The United Mega-States of Dixie is rife with economic poverty, corruption, and tensions between races such as Humans, Unchained Robots, Biots, and Reborn.
Each Mega-State within Dixie is semi-autonomous, having their own army and are generally left to their own internal affairs, but all under the United Mega-States of Dixie follow a few core dictates in order to maintain cohesion as a single nation. Each Mega-State must be ruled by a Governor that is elected by (nominally) democratic elections, each Mega-State must protect its fellow UMSD member states and provide support when necessary, and provide a small tax to the small Federal Departments that run the UMSD as a whole. Each Governor in turn elects a President for 5 years, with no term limits.
Any Mega-State within the UMSD could leave the union, but because of the threat of the neighboring powers of the United Covenates to the north, the Imperial Republics of America to the west, and the Federal Socialist Republics of the Caribbean in their southeast seaboard, few want to leave the combined protection of their neighboring Mega-States within Dixie. In addition, many of them are poor agricultural states and require the economic ties with each other to even hope to compete with their positively more advanced, potentially hostile neighboring countries.
Despite the racial, political, and economic issues that beset the United Mega-States of Dixie, their strong sense of culture, faith, and willingness to put their back into the work has kept Dixie a major power in the former United States of America.
THE DELACROIX FAMILY
Originally hailing from France, the Delacroix Family that settled in New Orleans during the 18th century was an exiled offshoot of the proper Delacroix Dynasty back from France, who hail from an Egyptologist and "Natural Philosopher" war veteran of the Napoleonic War. While the French branch of the Delacroix Dynasty grew wealthy over the years from many successful business ventures and positions in the changing French political landscape, the New Orleans family branch wallowed and had to make do with enterprises in the swampy, disease-ridden coastal city in Louisiana.
During the Golden Age of Cybernetics the French Delacroix became a powerful Mega-Corp and shared power of the world with other Mega-Corps, but over time it decayed when the political tensions in the European landscape erupted into wars and revolutions.
The Nu-Orleans Delacroix branch resurfaced from obscurity and humiliation shortly after to bring the world the power of the blood-powered nanomachines known as Hemites, setting the stage for a Hemotechnological Revolution. With this technology and their alliance with the United Mega-States of Dixie early in that nation's history by joint creating the Reborn species to be used as tools for the resource strapped UMSD, the Delacroix of Nu-Orleans have towered over their French-based cousins and rule as one of the most powerful Mega-Corps in the Cybergothic Age.
Delacroix Industries is a powerful manufacturing conglomerate focused on Hemotechnology and Agriculture, though their hands are in many other pies. Rumor has it that one field the Delacroix are interested in is the collection of old relics, tomes, artifacts, and cadavers of occult and ancient nature, and are willing to pay handsomely for authentics.
THE THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE DARK
One defining feature of the Cybergothic Age is the possible existence of monsters, demons, cryptids, and living urban legends. Because of Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Corporate Lab-grown horrors, footage manipulation, and sheer information overload, the things that lurk in children's nightmares and sordid tabloids can disguise themselves in broad daylight. In addition, there is a sense of apathy and resigned acceptance among the general populace about such things, and take it with a grain of salt and a shrug as long as it does not affect their own lives. But even so, many keep protection trinkets and banishing powders nearby in case they encounter a Terror one rainy night.
But how can things like the supernatural and monstrous be overlooked by many? Imagine all the things you believe today, such as potential political corruption, governments discussing UFOs, or just the fact the person everyone likes is not who they seem. How hard is it to make the world care? How about a nation? Your local community? Your neighbors? How about trying to explain these things to some of your family. How hard is it? Will you be seen as crazy? Do you remember any of the recent tragedies and deaths that occurred in the news off the top of your head? Or did you go on with your life because it was distant and you were going to be late for work or school or that video game which all your friends were playing online right now. Now add hi-tech illusions to that ordeal.
Is that ghost just some holographic event for Halloween? Were those faces on the wall just a glitch from your Augmented Reality eyepiece? Is the werewolf massacre just some fake news made up by AI-controlled newsfeeds to mask corporate mercenary activities? Your cousin next door keeps saying they saw a goat that stood on its own two feet, had the body of a man, and was the one that killed the cows of that witch lady up the hill and your cousin's cousin also confirmed. Do you believe them? It is rumored that the nice old man that gave you cookies has his children locked up underneath the basement, but surely that can't be true for such a sweet member of the community.
CONCLUSION
Regardless of whether the threat is supernatural or scientific, mundane or magical, Cybergothica is a game about encountering horrors up close and personal; the combination of old and new to create tales of dark secrets, forgotten haunts, and stormy portents to come. Regardless of whether the horror comes in the form of a Man, Monster, or Machine, the timeless Gothic themes of the Macabre, Melancholic, and Menacing permeate the setting of Cybergothica and its inhabitants.
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