Welcome to the official Q&A thread for Flesh & Blood - A CyberPunk Game. Within this post you'll find the Characters, house rules explanations, general concept, and other useful information for the game. This thread is to be used for all of your usual chatter that's held around a gaming table. Players

• 
  Fixer: Starlight (NPC)
  Starlight stands no more than five foot two inches natural, but her mid-calf-high indigo blue Doc Martins have heels that put her at five four. From her boots up, she is pure tough little petite. She wears DigitalFabric leggings, likely armored with synththread. One leg is a rich indigo blue to match her boots, and the other is white with indigo blue diamonds running in a jester pattern. She has on an oversized white Gibson Armored-T with a graphic anime girl in a classic schoolgirl uniform slicing her way through a bunch of strange monsters with a katana that glitters with digitized emphasis. This shirt hangs over what was obviously a utility belt with a tactical holster strapped to her right thigh containing an Automag that looks custom complete with a blue pearled grip. Her designer Enshiko coat is also a deep indigo color, likely made of DigitalFabric as well, cut with a heavy collar and an over-the-breast, two button closure that gives a designed angular opening to the bottom right edge. Her dark blue hair is cut pixie short and looks to be TechHair® with small dots of white light emitting from the ends. She’s pale in color—natural, but enhanced with a little bit of white base—and is wearing black lipstick and eyeshadow. Underneath her left eye are three digital tattoos of slightly pulsating stars, the largest of which is no wider than two centimeters and the smallest of which (the one close to the outer corner of her eye) is less than half a centimeter in width. All of them are strategically placed outside of her peripheral vision so that the glow (no matter how dull) doesn’t get in the way of her line of sight. She has further adorned herself with a labret piercing, both of her cheeks are pierced, her right nostril, and her left eyebrow as well; all with tiny, obsidian studs. On the outside of the right eye socket, a small silver plate matches the contour of her bone. She is a beauty, attractive and full of fire.
  
  
• 
  Fixer: Cred Stick Charlie - Played by Espatier
  Character Sheet: View Charlie's Sheet
  Contacts Sheet: View Charlie's Contacts Sheet
  Charlie is a Native American dressed to the nines in a navy-color Takanaka Cotton/Arachni-silk smartcloth three-piece suit (orange interior & vest), a white Takanaka "Exec" Monogram Pin-Collar French Cuff Shirt, an orange Takanaka "Exec" silk tie, a black Gordon & Loomis "Exec" Armored Top Coat, a Bailey's of Night City Navy Blue Fedora with orange interior lining and underside, and Gordon & Loomis brown Burnished Leather Chelsea Boots. He has Gordon & Loomis London Triangle Collar Tips & Chain in Gold and Gordon & Loomis London Triangle Gold Tiebar and Cufflinks to wrap up the ensemble. He's packing on his right hip, but just what is unknown. In poor air conditions, Luther wears an Icon America Black Phantom of the Opera Skinmask with air filtration. His kit is carried in a Ciampolo New Chic Crossbody Vintage Bag and he carries a hard case briefcase that appears durable and weatherproof. He is of average looks, not unattractive but not worthy of a modeling career while one of his strongest features is his infectious smile.
  
  
• 
  Muscle: M'harú Ghlahn (Clean Kill) - Played by Keeper of Dragons
  Character Sheet: View Ghlahn's Sheet
  This is a man of average build wearing black Icon America fatigues and stocking cap over his short cut red hair. He’s got a battlemask, the print on it is that of a Native American Warrior’s face paint, chipped and scratched with use. He has a Colt AMT handgun strapped to his right hip and a Kendachi Monoknife strapped to his left. Slung over his right shoulder within easy reach is a Nomad .44 Lever Action Rifle with a scope. He’s hardened. You can tell that. He walks with an easy, confident gait and his steely blue eyes don’t seem to miss a thing.
  
  
• 
  Muscle: Casino - Played by Tann'Talas
  Character Sheet: View Casino's Sheet
  A big guy with the looks of an action movie hero. He’s got a Reactmesh Smartbag over one shoulder, a submachine gun slung with easy access beneath his trench coat on the right side, and a throwing knife on his right thigh. He’s decked out in Gibson. Gibson Armored-T, long black duster, and Jeans. He has Ruf Tread boots and is built like a brick wall. His cyberware is a mix between NuCybe and OldCybe with a cybernetic bracer on his left wrist and the full-fledged mirrored visor covering his eyes. He’s been around the block a few times from the looks of things.
  
  
• 
  Muscle: Vegas - Hammer
  Character Sheet: View Vegas's Sheet
  This fellow is a leader. He oozes competent leadership from his expensive dark blue, pinstriped fedora to the shiny black dress boots, his highly expensive, French-made, three-piece suit, and his stylish rich man’s topcoat in between. Even his day bag is designer, and to boot… well, he looks like someone you’ve seen before… someone famous… Frank Sinatra! That’s who he looks like. He’s wearing aviator-style mirrorshades, but you catch a glimpse of what could only be a NuCybe optic splice placement on the outside rims of his eye sockets behind the glasses. The Edgerunner Alt-Cult bracer wrapped about his left hand confirms it. It looks like he might have a handgun in a shoulder rig too.
  
  
• 
  Muscle: Echo - Mischief
  Character Sheet: View Echo's Sheet
  A pale little woman, she stands a petite 5’ 3” tall with dusty brown, chin-length hair contained beneath a brick red Balaclava. She’s pretty, but not alarmingly so as most of the beauty is contained within her bone structure and soft features—more of the girl next door look than the fashion model that Blossom is, or even the Glam model Starlight could be. She wears a mottled, brown leather duster over similarly styled leather pants and a leather corset covering a red, black, and white plaid button-up shirt. Her boots are knee-high, riding boots with straps and antique-styled buckles. She has a brown canvas day pack slung over her left shoulder and a bolt action rifle across her back. A survival knife is strapped to her left thigh, and an H&K2020 Submachine gun can be seen under her right arm. The real unique touch to her whole look is what appears to be six small, red gemstones implanted just beneath her skin, three on either cheekbone.
  
  
• 
  Netrunner/Wardriver: Blossom - NPC
  This Asian woman is so beautiful she’s intimidating. She’s about five foot seven inches with two-inch heels on her knee-high combat boots. Her right leg has a camo stocking pulled up to mid-thigh while her left thigh is bare up to the hem of her black, Icon America boy-shorts. She’s got a 12” combat knife strapped to her crimson red Uniware Utility Belt on her right hip, and a Luigi Franchi shotgun tucked under her left arm hanging from a sling over her shoulder. Her Gibson Battlegear jacket is black and red, and she’s wearing a dark red cross between a sports bra and a tank-top that leaves her toned midriff bare. She’s got bright pink, heart-shaped mirrorshades and slightly curly, slightly frizzed from the moisture in the air, platinum blond hair that’s done up playfully and short. She’s got a bivvy bag draped over her right shoulder and though her jacket sleeves hang low over her hands you can make out fingerless gloves. She has a small boom-a-rang shaped metal moon next to her left eye.
  
  
• 
  Netrunner: Cipher- CameToPlay
  Character Sheet: View Cipher's Sheet
  What this tall, dark-skinned woman has going on is style. A slicked-back black mohawk shows off the tribal-style tattoo curving round her right ear, giving full view of the gauges and lobe piercings in both ears. Her brown eyes are accented by aesthetic cuts in her eyebrows, with a wide nose and full lips denoting an African mix to her Latina looks. While her face is heart-shaped, her body is that of an hourglass, shown clearly by the skin-hugging designer jeans and vid-graphic T-shirt. A black Uniware armoured jacket provides her with protection, while the collar stands tall for extra points in cool, though it does double-duty to hide the small metallic cylinders at the base of her skull.
  
  Out of place from the hardline-look of its owner, a medium-sized and fluffy griffin sits at Cipher’s feet. An eagle’s head is dominated by large, brown eyes, with a small yellow beak standing stark against its white feathers. The body is that of a lion, though with oversized paws and a pair of folded wings blending in with the tawny fur. A tail swishes happily like that of a dog, causing the oversized heart charm on its collar to shake. The charm reads Roosevelt.
  
  
• 
  Medtech: Guardian- dragon-soul92
  Character Sheet: View Guardian's Sheet
  Tall, rather slender build with a sharp, somewhat angular face and sharp nose. Ice-blue eyes and platinum blonde hair. Hair is quite short and spiky. Has a tattoo on his right arm (just below the shoulder) of a winged heart and 'J & A' on a scroll. He wears comfortable and rather casual clothes: a chequered red flannel top (the checkered lines being black) with no sleeves and black trousers when he isn't in his gear. He also constantly wears a watch on his left wrist. He wears black Converse shoes and has his right ear pierced.
  
  
• 
  Techie: Fixer - Played by Nomad D2
  Character Sheet: View Fixer's Sheet
  He’s approximately 5’7”. His average build shows very little by way of fat on his body. He is wearing olive drab trousers with a black shirt and boots. His jacket is also an olive drab green color that matches his trousers and has a grey hood and zippers on each of the lower parts of the sleeves. Slung over his left shoulder is a dark brown leather pack. He is openly armed with an Uzi on a shoulder sling beneath his right arm under his jacket, barely visible as he moves through the door. More readily visible is a Militech Arms Avenger autopistol in an outside waistband holster on his right hip. His head is covered by a black watch cap and his hood is up. In bad air conditions, he wears a standard air filtration mask that covers his lower face and nose.
• 
  Media: Patriot - NPC
  A little taller than average height at 5' 11", Daniel wears his long black tech hair in dreads that descend past his shoulders, with strands of glowing red woven through the braids. He wears a thin mustache and small goatee and has a charismatic and good-looking face. Of average build, he moves confidently with eyes that move about capturing the world around him. Of Black Caribbean heritage, he's considered a very handsome black man. He has three light tattoos. The first covers his back between his shoulderblades and is an All-Seeing Eye. The second is on his right forearm and is a simple rendition of Lady Justice. The third is on his left bicep and is the Kanji symbol for Honest.

EX-GROUP MEMBERS / DECEASED MEMBERS

• 
  Medtech: Bloodbank - CameToPlay
  Character Sheet: View Bloodbank's Sheet
  Status: Alive - Left the Group Willingly
  A decent-looking young man of average build, wearing black city camo Gibson Battlegear fatigues with Ruf Tread Combat Boots. He has black hair that’s barely visible underneath the black Icon America head wrap and has a Battlemask Skin Mask. The Battlemask is printed with the face of a cracked skull and sculpted to match the design. He has a large, black nylon bag slung over his left shoulder and a Armalite .44 strapped to the outside waistband of his utility belt on the right side. His hands aren’t covered, so it’s easy to see that he has some affiliation with the Edgerunner Alt-Cult as well judging by the bracers you see on his hands (one on each). He also has the telltale crescent moon sliver on either side of his eyes.

CyberPunk Slang

Books (I own all of these, so I don't consider this pirating as if we were all sitting around a table, I'd be letting you use them)

• My CyberPunk Character Sheet (XLSX format)
• CyberPunk Reference Book
• CyberPunk 2020 Sourcebook
• CyberPunk Gear List
• Chromebook 1
• Chromebook 2
• Chromebook 3
• Chromebook 4
• Solo of Fortune 1
• Solo of Fortune 2
• The Killing Arts - Martial Arts
• Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net
• CyberPunk v.3 (Use this rulebook for character creation)
•  Cyberpunk Red Rulebook
•  Cyberpunk Red Errata

House Rules Character Creation

• Skills (Character Points): I handle CP a little different than the rule books prescribe. I believe that players are looking for some sort of reward for their role-play, and that means character advancement. 1 CP per skill level means that I couldn't hand out CP as a reward without automatically changing the face of the game. So, I make it a little more difficult to advance to each subsequent skill level while still allowing me to hand out CP as a regular reward. Follow this schedule for skill procurement and advancement.
  
  • 1 = 1CP
  • 2 = 3CP
  • 3= 6CP
  • 4 = 10CP
  • 5 = 15CP
  • 6 = 21CP
  • 7 = 28CP
  • 8 = 36CP
  • 9 = 45CP
  • 10 = 55CP
• Roll 13 d10, total the results and add 15. That's your Character Points, used to generate your stats, Perks & Talents, and Skills.
• Everyman Skills: Yes. You get them.
• Unskilled Checks: Attempting a skill that your character does not have any points in is possible. I believe that everyone can attempt a skill. Just like in real life, if I wanted to attempt a biology experiment, I could. Doesn't mean I'd be able to do it well, correctly, or get it right the first, second, or third times. But I might succeed eventually due to repeat trial and error scenarios, and in game terms that would mean that I had earned my first CP in that skill.
• Starting EB (cash), Reputation, Creative Currency, and Giri:
  • Starting Cash: Roll 10d10 and multiply it by 100. That's your starting cash to outfit your character including Past Generation Cyberware (non-v3 Cyberware).
  • You all start with a Reputation of 2. This is a form of character advancement.
  • You all begin with 10 Creative Currency points. You can use these points to effect the storyline by altering rolls, events, etc. in the following manner:
    
    • Add a bonus to your die roll: On Creative Currency (CC) per +1 modifier.
    • Change Minor Storyline Element: This is the equivalent of changing a barely consequential detail (final say as to the consequence is reserved for the GM) - 3CC
    • Change a Major Storyline Element - 6CC
    • Change a life-altering Storyline Element - 9CC
  • Giri: First, you need to understand what Giri is. This is a Japanese term (roughly) meaning Relationships of Mutual Obligation. In terms of gameplay, you gain Giri by doing favors for Alt-Cults. You spend Giri within those Alt-Cults by calling in favors. In Character Creation terms, you can spend some of your Giri (GM must approve it) on NuCyb associated directly with those Alt-Cults which may, or may not, cost EB as well as Giri depending on the GM’s ruling. You begin with 125 total Giri. You can decide within which Alt-Cult the spread is distributed.

Alt-Cults General Rule of Thumb:

I hate the presentation of Alt-Cults in v3. I like the concept of various subcultures and their politics, but I don’t like the concepts presented in the rule book. So, while Alt-Cults exist, don’t expect them to play out as in v3. Think of them more like the subcultures of today. You can try to insinuate yourself into any Alt-Cult, and there are more than what’s presented in the book, but how you behave, past actions, and the way you approach it will determine your successes and failures. Cyberware I like a lot of what they’ve done in v3 concerning Cyberware, but I also don’t like the concept of Cyberware being wholly the domain of an Alt-Cult. So, this is the way that I approach it. You have Old School Cyberware which is from the 2020 and 2013 books. All of this is still available with it’s benefits and detriments, but society has made a major shift to NuCyberware and looks down on Old School as obsolete and of a past-gone era. It’s for the grandpas and grandmas, yo. The new thing is to alter your meatsuit while keeping as much you intact as possible. Cyberpsychosis is scary, Choomba!

Programs, Wardriving, and Netrunning

• Do you have a cost list for purchasing Netrunner mindcores and programs (like the ones on pgs 99-105)
  
  • Mindcores cost 250EB
  • The Program:This is the program that directs the mindcore. It usually has a Name, an Icon (the shape the Construct takes), and a Strength (STR). The program’s STR is used to determine:
    
    • Reflexes (REF) of the Construct (REF=STR)
    • The number of attacks per round it can make (1 per each STR point)
    • Its Combat Ability (for both attack and defense, as added to 5+1D10.
    To determine the cost figure out what the purpose of the program (Type) is and then use this modifier according to Type with a base cost of 10EB/Strength Point.
    
    • Intrusion, Decryption, Control, Utilities - 1x Cost
    • Detection & Evasion - 2x Cost
    • Anti-System - 3x Cost
    • Anti-ICE - 4x Cost
    • Anti-Personnel - 25x Cost
    So, for example, a Zombie would cost 5x10EB for its strength of 5 (50EB) plus 300EB for 60 Structure Points equals 350EB times 25 because it's an Anti-Personnel software so, 8,750 EB.
  • 1kg of dust or polymer equals 20pts of Structure. Both cost $100 per kg (2.2lbs).
• How many programs can I run at one time? Can I take any other actions beyond commanding my program(s) in a round (like, fire a weapon or move)?
  
  • Programs are designed to run on their own and have specific functions. A Zombie is an Anti-Personel Program, and when activated will set about trying to kill whatever target is designated. If you want to redirect the program to another target, that would require an action. So, how many programs can you run at once? How many actions do you want to take to control them once you set them in motion? To simplify, I'm going to say that you can have up to your INT score running, but I reserve the right to require an Awareness/Notice check if you have more than a couple and are engaged in a distracting situation (like a firefight) to notice when they finish a task, where they are, or other such action.
• Can I run my programs through my Agent (phone)? i.e. If we're just running out in the streets, doing battle with some gangers, can I rez up some real-space construct to waste them?
  
  • You run your programs through the mindcore. So, if you're carrying the mindcore and the nanodust or polymer, then you can set them in action right then and there just by dropping the materials on the ground and tossing a mindcore into the mix. It doesn't operate off of your Agent.
  • To hack into an Intranet and Wardrive, or to run on the Net (because I don't like the timeline that has the Net go completely dark, I view it instead as a Cyber Wildlands) you use your deckchip which plugs into any chipware port in combination with a smartboard. Running programs in an Intranet and on the Net would be similar to the function in the Real World.
• Do any of the programs have range attacks in real-space? Or are they all variations of melee attacks?
  
  • All construct attacks are melee. None are ranged unless it absolutely states otherwise within the program description (which none do right now to my knowledge).
• Are all the attacks set at STR+5+1d10 for the attack or does my Interface skill modify it?
  
  • All construct attacks are a base STR+5+1d10. They are preprogrammed, so your interface skill won't come into play. However, if you want to focus on one construct using your deckchip and smartboard, you can add your Interface skill to the roll. In that case, you'd definitely have to make an Awareness/Notice check to stay on top of each additional construct you're running with a compounding modifier for each construct. While wardriving, or on the Net, your Interface skill will come into play if you are actively managing the program.
• Can I code my own programs for free? (Anti-personnel programs are too expensive for my taste!)
  
  • Yes, but free might be the wrong word to use. Shoot me a list of the programs you'd like to create and descriptions (if they're different than in the books), and we'll see what it might cost.
• My understanding is the I can reuse the nanodust or polymer for any program as long as there is enough weight for the structure of the program. Is that true? (I.e. I could use the nanodust to create a manticore, and then end the program and make the nanodust into a zombie)
  
  • Yes, but only one program per construct at a time.
• Is that also true for the mindcores? Can I re-program them so that I make one mindcore run a manticore program, end that program, re-program and run the same mindcore with a zombie program? If yes, how long does the reprogramming take? And is it a skill based check?
  
  • Each mindcore runs one program at a time. While the rules don't specifically state any more than that, my ruling is that you can attempt to connect to an active mindcore (Interface+Programming check) and then attempt to reprogram it (another such check), but doing so takes one action per STR point of the new program.

Additional Info

• NCPTD Bus Ticket = 1 NCD/stop (prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.) Undercity and Midcity routes only.
• NCART Ticket (The Rail) = Upper City .75 NCD/station (prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.)
  
  • Midcity .50 NCD/station (prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.)
  • Undercity .25 NCD/station (prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.)
  • Ground Taxi = 3 NCD/mile + Gratuity (10 NCD/mile through Combat Zones, or if any violence occurs). Undercity and Midcity access only.
  • Red Cab Taxi Service, Day = 3.5 NCD/mile + Gratuity, Midcity and Uppercity only. (15 NCD/mile if any violence occurs - no combat zones and prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.)
  • Troubleshooter Cab Service (self-driving ground car) = 3.5 NCD/mile, prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash. Please note that these cars are outfitted with both internal and external security systems. Mess with the car, you could end up dead. As a matter-of-fact, there's a constant pool running at the Troubleshooter facilities as to the number of deaths per day caused by some jacked fool messing with a cab.)
  • Troubleshooter Cab Service (self-driving AV) = 15 NCD/mile, prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.).
  • Troubleshooter Cab Service (Gyro or Speedboat) = 10EB/mile, prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.).
  • Troubleshooter Extraction Fees: 
    
    • Extraction from a Patrol/Controlled Area = +20% 
    • Extraction from a Firefight = +15% 
    • Extraction from Gang Violence = +10% 
    • Extraction from an Illegal Area = +25%
  • AV Taxi Service (there are a number of them) = 15 NCD/mile, + Gratuity. 25 NCD/mile if there's violence. Prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Aerocab = 25 NCD flat fee + 10 NCD/mile and Gratuity. +25% if there's violence. Prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Corporate Zone Rental Car (groundcar) = 50 NCD/day + 2 NCD/mile. Insurance is heavily pushed and runs an additional 30 NCD/day, prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash. Corporations are miserly and will come after anyone who damages their property.
  • Honda-Avis Vehicle Rental Service = 100 NCD/day. Paid in advance. Prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Renta-Robo Rental = 220 NCD/day + .60 NCD/mile, prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Executive Transport Service (+driver) = 150-850 NCD/hour.
  • Maglev Standard Ticket = 100 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
    
    • Maglev 1st Class Ticket = 250 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Dirigible Standard Ticket = 300 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
    
    • Dirigible 1st Class Ticket = 1,000 - 3,000 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Transatlantic Stratoliner (3 hour tour) = 2,000 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Transatlantic Jet (7 hour flight) = 300 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • Transatlantic Dirigible (36 hours) = 150 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • LEO Coach Ticket = 1,500 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
    
    • LEO 1st Class Ticket = 3,000 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
  • GEO Coach Ticket = 2,500 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash.
    
    • GEO 1st Class Ticket = 3,000 NCD prepaid, or paid through a SINcard or Credit Transfer Device. No cash. You can get further out in Space than LEO and GEO, but we won't worry about that right now.

Upper City

Things you would know about Upper City...

1. Security - Most of Upper City is Corp-owned, patrolled, and managed. What isn't, is Desnai. That means that there are regular security checkpoints, corporate security patrols, and near Desnai enclaves there are even Mecha. Corporate Security rarely asks questions. In the best of cases, they'll use non-lethal means to address situations, but that requires a lot of paperwork. Desnai are even less forgiving of anyone trying to enter their enclave without dogtags.
2. Unlicensed Weaponry - Any weapon that is not something that could be considered a concealed carry in our modern age would not be capable of being licensed without a corporate charter. CorpZones and Enclaves only allow those with permits to carry, so think of it this way: If you aren't affiliated with a corporation, you aren't getting a permit. That's not to say that Edgerunners haven't figured out how to create false permits. Fixers like Starlight can get them for a price. Depending on the fixer, they might pass inspection. Alternatively, you can always try to avoid checkpoints and patrols...
3. Access - Only the more rough-n'-tumble outfits service all three levels and every zone in Night City. Not even public transit will take you all the way from Uppercity to Undercity on one route, or in one vehicle. And public transit is rarely on time. Gangs like to screw with public transit vehicles, tracks, and routes. Why? Because it's fun. Need there be another reason?
4. Monitoring - Uppercity is heavy with cameras and bio-monitoring devices used to keep executives "safe." So, if you're in Uppercity on a main street, in a regularly used alleyway, tunnel, or lift... chances are you're being watched.

Night City

It’s hard to imagine anything as big as Night City. Let’s start with the sheer volume. The Night City megacity stretches from the San Diego borderlands and the edge of northern Mexico, all the way to just south of what used to be Portland, Oregon. That’s over eight hundred miles. If you started to drive an old-fashioned groundcar from one end of Night City to the other, flat out at 100mph, it would still take you over eight hours. But length is only one dimension.

Night City is also wide—wide enough to reach from the shores of the Pacific all the way inland to the base of California’s Central Valley. That’s over two hundred miles wide—a two and half hour drive by the same groundcar metric. If the Night City megacity was in only two dimensions, that would be enough to make it twice as big as the cities of the Kanto Plain—Tokyo, Kawasaki and Yokohama—once regarded as the largest human habitation zones on earth. But Night City also extends upwards—in some places almost a mile or more into the sky.

The megacity is a huge layer cake, with excavations burrowing far underground, tiers with innumerable connecting spans thrown up between buildings, complex warrens of skyscraper blocks, roads, elevator banks... So how the hell did they build a city that big? The answer is: it built itself.

Night City is the result of an incredible experiment in megastructure construction. Years back, when the center of the city—the Old Night City that straddled the central coast of the California Free State—was a blasted, radioactive no-go zone, the survivors knew there was no way they would ever be able to rebuild the place fast enough to support the millions that had been displaced in a single nuclear flash. They also knew the city center was now a huge pile of rubble that would have to be cleared out even before construction could begin. Assuming demolition teams could even survive in the middle of the hot zone. What they needed was something that could magically use up the wreckage, build new buildings, and thrive in a rad-packed glow-zone. Luckily for them, about this time Dr. David Chiang showed up from the wreckage of New Chicago with a bucketful of greyish goop and a solution.

Chaing’s grey goop was nanites—simple submicroscopic robots that could be programmed to move molecules around the way an ant moves a grain of sugar. One ant isn’t much, true. But if you have trillions upon trillions of these “ants”, pretty soon, you’re moving a LOT of sugar.

A CDC scientist working to cure the short-lived Carbon Plague, Chiang had stumbled upon a particularly powerful form of nano; a strain that reproduced extremely fast, was almost tireless, lived off carbon dioxide and heat energy, and was capable of moving huge amounts of matter in a very short time. After an interrupted experimental run in New Chicago, Night City was the perfect test for Chiang's new nano; the ruins were still hot, the ash from the blast was pure carbon, and there weren’t any people to get in the way. Adapting the nano to be programmed using simple construction algorithms directed by a central computer, Chiang’s brainchild—the Genius Building—was born.

A generational step beyond the “smart buildings” of the early 2000’s, Genius Buildings are self-contained, self-maintaining structures created using trillions of construction robots called nanobuilders. These nearly microscopic machines construct buildings from raw materials, following the robotic guidance of a central "architect module." The architect module also holds the building's power supply, main taps for water and utilities, and repair coordination. The building grows around the architect module, following a unified plan that is agreed on by the surrounding modules. To make sure it all comes out right, there are only a limited number of building plans possible, and all the Architect Modules in an area are programmed to discuss the layout of their buildings with each other.

Common layouts include:

• Tiers: These are building modules that are clustered along a street. They reach from one level to the bottom of the next level in a continuous segment, much like the brownstone blocks of old New York. Tiers are the backbone of most of Night City. Each one is a huge megastructure, much like a piling holding up a dock, with many openings and levels.
• Roundabouts: These are buildings opening into a central transit shaft. They are connected by ramps and catwalks that span the shaft from side to side.
• Suspensions: These are buildings suspended in transit shafts, air shafts or on ramps. They can be cylindrical, pyramidal or square, although cylindrical is the most common. They are connected on all sides with catwalks and roads. Corporates tend to favor these, as access is easy to control.
• Starscrapers: These are buildings that are rooted in the ground, usually next to a transit shaft. Starscrapers are incredibly tall, often reaching over 1000 stories. They are cities in themselves, often combining the work of several architect modules building on top of each other.
• Cores: These are hollowed out, conical ground shafts usually covered with a metal or clear geodesic dome. Transit tubes and exits lead out from underground to surface terminals. There is usually a park at the bottom. Most remote towns are of this model, as well as all Desnai Parkologies.
• Spans: These are living structures built as modules along bridges, dams, or other horizontal structures. Transit is along the side or top of the underlying structure.

Genius Buildings are designed to operate independently, much like beehives. The Architect Module is the queen. A typical Architect Module can build a ten story building in about three months. Once the building is finished, it settles down in the basement and starts to bud. A month later, it propagates four “children” Architect Modules just like itself, that stump off on their own little legs (surrounded by a cloud of builder nano) to start their own buildings. This means every four months another building and four more architects. Do the math, goboy, and you soon realize that in one year, you get sixty-five ten-story buildings from one lousy Architect Module.

The first month, Night City rolled out two hundred Architect Modules. That’s thirteen thousand buildings. More than twice the number of high rise buildings in central Manhattan. In one year. It’s been around fifteen, say twenty years, right? Increasing geometrically. Getting the picture? The construction wasn’t just upwards though. Once the nanotech builders had exhausted every scrap of the wreckage of old Night City, they started branching down and out. Excavating deep into the earth for raw materials, the nanobuilders left huge tunnels and excavations, which were promptly filled in by other types of nanobuilders. Other nanobuilders diversified, drawing material off the sea bottom and throwing the results up as spans over the water and along the shore. As the Drift Cities came to rest along the California Coast, outrigger bridges were constructed to integrate even these into the mass of the ever-growing sprawl.

To make things more interesting, pretty soon Chiang realized that the nanites weren’t shutting down once they’d finished a building. Affected by leftover radiation from the Night City nuke, they were replicating, diversifying. They were even starting to cannibalize each other in a bizarre simulation of anthill warfare. The City began to grow far beyond the expected boundaries; in two years, it had absorbed every habitable structure for two hundred miles, converting ruins, highways, buildings, even exposed landmasses into miles of habitable City Space. It was even rumored that the nano stripped the bodies out of graveyards. That it absorbed sleeping people if they didn’t wake up in time.

In the end, Chiang went insane and hung himself from the highest tower of the City Center. But his creation lives on in the titanic megastructures that make up Night City. (It’s also rumored that Chiang lives on as well; that the nano ate his corpse and converted it into the penthouse of the building he died in.)

Nanobuilders are specifically programmed to avoid certain extremes of environment; they don’t build in deep water and they don’t build on mountain slopes steeper than 30°. They tend to prefer flat areas over slopes, and well-watered areas over deserts. The result is that the majority of the Night City megacity is concentrated within a narrow band between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Nevada Range. Mountains and lakes also break this profile up—the Night City megacity isn’t all one big construction, and there are gaps in the superstructure that are spanned by freeways and outrider structures. However, even with these breaks, the overall design is that of one vast urban area, linked both horizontally and vertically by a bewildering maze of ramps, elevated roads, connecting bridges, tunnels, and flyways.

All this building doesn’t come without a price, however. Although Genius Buildings are self supporting, integrating solar power storage arrays, water collectors/waste processors and other functions into the basic building design, eventually the building’s Architect Module runs out of raw materials to maintain itself. The building dies, leaving a habitable shell no longer maintained by its all-seeing robotic manager. Other buildings start to cannibalize raw materials from it; the structure weakens and eventually collapses. When enough buildings have died back, new Architect Modules move into the area and start building on the ruins of their deceased ancestors.

In many ways, Night City is like a coral reef, its framework created by millions of self-regulating organisms, with humans squatting in the reef’s skeletal structure like tropical fish in a lagoon. Humans provide the furniture, street signs, decoration and plants, but the buildings themselves live on whether there are people there or not.

So in a place this big, how do you figure out where things are? Simple. You use Integrates, Hubs, Levels and Zones.

• Integrates: Integrates are parts of the City that correspond to general geographic regions of the old California Free State. Large cities are arranged in central hubs of a million or more people, with outlying City Cores and span cities linking in. For example, SanFran Integrate has massive hubs around Old San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, with megastructures and span cities crossing the Bay and arching over the Coastal range to the Pacific.
  
  • NorCal Integrate: This region covers north of San Francisco to Portland Oregon. Since this area is covered by mountainous forests, it is not as dense as the Integrates to the south.
  • SanFran Integrate: This is the region that encompasses the original city of San Francisco, as well as the surrounding cities of Oakland, Berkeley, San Mateo, and San Jose at its most extreme.
  • MidCoast Integrate: This covers the region from Santa Cruz to Monterey, with outrunners over the San Gabriel Mountains to link to the Central Valley. Many small towns have been replaced with City Cores linked to larger townships by tunnels, bridges, and flyways.
  • Central Valley Integrate: This area is a web of outlying City Cores and agricultural fields, with several large Urban Zones acting as the hub for the region.
  • Night City Integrate: This is the original core of Night City, extending north to the MidCoast Integrate and merging south into the Los Angels hub. The original Night City lies in about 100 feet of water beneath the arching overpasses of the new construction; the central City Core is still lingeringly radioactive and is avoided by all by the most hardcore scavengers.
  • Los Angels Integrate: This zone covers all of the old Los Angeles Sprawl, from the San Gabriels to the ocean. Much of this region is underwater, flooded in the aftermath of the Quake, or later subsumed when the ice caps were melted by the Orbital Mirrors. As a result, much of Los Angeles is made up of older ruins that jut out of the water like broken teeth, capped by swathes of new construction where the water isn’t too deep.
  • Santa Diego-Tijuana Integrate: This region sprawls from the Mexican border town that was once Tijuana, over the desert to San Diego, then north up the coast to Long Beach. SDT is one of the fastest growing regions in the Night City megacity; lots of open land, raw materials (sand), and desert heat made a perfect environment for the nanobuilders.
  • Integrated Hubs: Each Integrate has a central hub, where most of the regional government activities (such as there are) take place. These Integrated Hubs are the central cities for a sprawl of geographically close subcities. They orient the Night City megacity from north to south; the freeways run through the Hubs and most of the larger buildings have “grown” in these areas. Most Hubs are centered around particular Old Cities buried underneath them:
    
    • Ash-Med Integrated Hub
    • SanFran Integrated Hub 
    • Night City Integrated Hub 
    • Fresno Integrated Hub 
    • Angeles Integrated Hub 
    • Santa Diego Integrated Hub

Often times, as in San Francisco, Santa Diego, and Portland, there are exposed areas of the Old City preserved as parks or memorials. This isn’t easy; it takes regular applications of counter-nano to kill off the encroaching Builders and keep them from eating landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge. But the locals seem to feel it’s worth the effort.

• Levels: Levels encompass the vertical component of the megacity, which is built like an urban layer cake. As a rule, the higher you go, the nicer the environment gets; you’re closer to sunlight, solar and wind power generators, rooftop gardens and water traps. The lower you are, the uglier things become; most of the ruined parts of the city are down below, as well as most of the waste processing systems, scavenging yards and the nastier denizens of the Street.
  
  The Night City megacity has three main levels:
  • Highcity: This is the realm of starscrapers and other high altitude, expensive living areas. Parks, solar and wind farms lie in this level, as well as a lot of the rooftop gardens and water supplies.
  • Midcity: This is the main level of the megacity. It is webbed with transit corridors, freeways, office/shopping spaces, and high density “concentrated apartments” (conapts). Most people live at this level, in a dense urban environment where only neon and light shafts illuminate the buildings; a bustling, noisy space that never seems to sleep.
  • Undercity: This level is mostly ruins; parts of the Old Cities that have been built over; also abandoned spaces and industrial facilities There’s not a lot of traffic here, and what there is is mostly gangs, factories and freight. Don’t expect to see the sky here; you’re probably looking at the bottom of the Midcity level freeways. Much of the undercity level is also flooded; this is a favorite place for Reef scavenger gangs to set up shop.
    
    
• Zones: Zones are East to West areas that sprawl horizontally from the Pacific Ocean to the Sierra Nevada range. In general, Combat Zones, Urban Zones and Road Zones weave in and out of each other, bordered by Ocean and Waste zones.
  • Oceanzone: Westmost, offshore areas; home to floating (Riptide) or underwater (Reef) Enclaves.
  • UrbanZone: Congested mega-urban areas, home to Edgerunners, street gangs, Cee-Metals and NeoCorps.
  • Roadzones: Central city areas where the main transport arteries are. Home to gogangs, Rollers. Besides roadways and transport tubes, there are lots of urban structures (Edgerunners, some Cee-Metals) spanning the freeway lanes.
  • CorpZones: Areas controlled by Neo-Corps. Offices, labs, apartments. are all found here in these secure compounds. Expect a high level of security and an unfriendly welcome.
  • Combat Zones: Contested City space controlled or taken over by gangs or other hostile groups. Usually being torn up by the Builder nano.
  • WasteZones: Uninhabited areas to the east of the megacity, edging the desert. Classic “road warrior” (RaffenShiv, Rollers) turf.
    

OK, so let’s put it all together. Level is how high you are in the megacity and your access to power and food (Highcity), business and entertainment (Midcity) or factories and ruins (Undercity). Zone is a general indicator of the type of environment you’re in, as well as a rough approximation of where you are in relation to the ocean or desert. The combination of level + zone equals your Volumetric and gives you a pretty good idea of what’s going to be around you at any given time. Say you’re traveling along a freeway—that puts you in a Roadzone. But your Level will also affect your situation:

• Highcity Roadzone: Open air highways, super high-speed traffic, the possibility of encountering bad weather or air attacks.
• Midcity Roadzone: High speed transit, sometimes moving through downtown buildings, with occasional attacks from bozouku gangs and boosters.
• Undercity Roadzone: Low speed transit on bad roads, moving through ruins, flooded areas, or labyrinthine factory zones. Expect lots of trouble from gangs, scavengers, or bad-tempered truckers trying to deliver a load.

Here’s another example. Say you’re travelling over water at the megacity edge. That’s Ocean Zone. No big buildings out here, so there‘s no Highcity level.

• Midcity OceanZone: Look for floating cities, pilings, piers, boat towns, span cities. Could be some trouble with water-based boosters, pirates.
• Undercity OceanZone: Expect submerged city ruins, Reefer colonies, wrecked ships and sub using pirates.

So now you know where you are. But how do you get from place to place? You move between volumetrics by using:

• Freeways: These are highspeed, suspended structures linking various areas of the megacity. Equivalent to the interstates of the previous century, they are part of the megacity itself, passing through buildings, arcing up ramps, holding up structures. Freeways are never smaller than 8 lanes, with programmable holosignage and lights incorporated into the design. They are self-repairing nanocrete, a fusion of nanoplastic and asphalt.
• Transit Shafts: These are elevator and lifter banks along the side of the shaft. There is very limited airspace in these; since ramps, catwalks and buildings are suspended in them.
• Air Shafts: These are ventilation and skylight shafts with no external transport—you need wings or airmobile vehicles. Big gaping holes facilitate travel, although airshafts are not really designed for it.
• Ramps: Few and far between, these are spiral freeway ramps that go from level to level. They never go more than one level at a time, so you’ll usually be forced to travel some distance on the horizontal before you can go to another ramp.

Summing Up

So welcome to Night City, the largest human-made structure on earth. A place so big, so chaotic, and so dangerous that there’s only one kind of person who could survive living in it—a true Cyberpunk. (That means you, chombatta.) So grab your gear and get ready to cruise the volumetric, because if you can make it here, a wimpy little burg like New York ain’t gonna be any problem at all.

Is my character name actually Casino? I was still in the "thinking up a new name" phase I thought lol.

1) Regarding Giri... do we start with 125 Giri points to spend on NuCybe?

2) How much to mindcores cost?

3) My understanding is that you can't actually buy programs anymore. Do I submit a list of programs that my character has "pre-coded" already for approval?

Thanks!
Ayrn

I thought it was kinda cool, but it's just a suggestion. I wanted the character sheet to be completely filled out. If you want it changed, you're more than welcome to provide me with a different handle.

You asked while I was typing out the answers to your previous set of questions, Ayrn. We'll call you Speedy from here on out.

See the first post for your answers.

Thanks for the reply...

Couple more questions:

1) Can I code my own programs for free? (Anti-personnel programs are too expensive for my taste! )

2) My understanding is the I can reuse the nanodust or polymer for any program as long as there is enough weight for the structure of the program. Is that true? (I.e. I could use the nanodust to create a manticore, and then end the program and make the nanodust into a zombie)

3) Is that also true for the mindcores? Can I re-program them so that I make one mindcore run a manticore program, end that program, re-program and run the same mindcore with a zombie program? If yes, how long does the reprogramming take? And is it a skill based check?

Feel like I have more... but I have forgotten them at the moment.

Ayrn

I am still kicking around ideas for my character concept, so am basically waiting to see how Brom creates him ???

Question: How prevalent is plastic surgery or cosmetic surgery in this game setting ???

By the way, this game is gonna stretch my writing and role play in new directions, especially after reading what Brom has posted and not really having a clue how it all works!

What would be the Historical Timeline for Information on the Culture (Music & Arts) from say the 40s, 50s, 60s,70s, 80s, 90s etc ???

Kicking around a possible character idea

Ayrn, check the first post for answers to your last batch of questions.

Hammer, plastic surgery...

Bodysculpting
As long as you're having a few grafts put on, why not go all the way and re-do the whole thing? The art of bodysculpting includes skin tints, hair and eye color changes, breast enlargement and reduction, and general all-over bodywork. You can have bone and muscle removed to become shorter, or have grafts added to become taller. Excess fat can be suctioned away, and collagen implants can smooth wrinkles, add weight, and change contours.
Bodysculpting is available in a number of body salons, including Bodyshoppe, Parts N' Programs, and Docs R Usâ„¢. Bodysculpting includes appearance changes, appearance
enhancement, and exotic fashion.

Change Appearance:
Looking like a favorite movie star or celebrity is still a popular fad even in 203X; entire gangs, known as Posers, have themselves bodyshaped to resemble famous people. Appearance changes are also a staple for Solos, Idols and any other sort of high mover who needs to change identities often. The cost of an appearance change is based on how convincing that change

• At $1,200, you look sort of like you wanted to; a casual observer could spot the difference on an EVERYDAY Awareness check.

What do you need to know as far as the eras go?

Just wanted to know if the History of Music & Arts (possibly Political History) is as we know it in Real Life from the 40s thru the 90s ???

Yes. It is.

Our starting cash goes for weapons, armor and cyberware correct?

I downloaded all the books and anything out of the Chrome Books are legal rt?

Hey Brom

Where is the location of our adventure in Night City in relation to New Vegas ???

Are there any particulars that you can share about New Vegas (for Back History purposes) ???

Anything about Night City ?????

Thank You

Is there a list of all gear and cyberware? Be easier to find an item on the list with a pg number then go and look it up

Hammer:
It's hard to imagine anything as big as Night City.
Let's start with the sheer volume. The Night City megacity stretches from the San Diego borderlands and the edge of northern Mexico, all the way to just south of what used to be Portland, Oregon. That's over eight hundred miles. If you
started to drive an old fashioned groundcar from one end of Night City to the other, flat out at 100mph, it would still take you over eight hours. But length is only one dimension. Night City is also wide—wide enough to reach from the shores of the Pacific all the way inland to the base of California's Central Valley. That's over two hundred miles wide—a two and half hour drive by the same groundcar metric.

If the Night City megacity was in only two dimensions, that would be enough to make it twice as big as the cities of the Kanto Plain—Tokyo, Kawasaki and Yokohama—once regarded as the largest human habitation zones on earth. But Night City also extends upwards—in some places almost a mile or more into the sky. The megacity is a huge layercake, with excavations burrowing far underground, tiers with innumerable connecting spans thrown up between buildings,
complex warrens of skyscraper blocks, roads, elevator banks...

So how the hell did they build a city that big? The answer is: it built itself.

Night City is the result of an incredible experiment in megastructure construction. Years back, when the center of the city—the Old Night City that straddled the central coast of the California Free State—was a blasted, radioactive no-go zone, the survivors knew there was no way they would ever be able to rebuild the place fast enough to support the millions that had been displaced in a single nuclear flash. They also knew the city center was now a huge pile of rubble that would have to be cleared out even before construction could begin. Assuming demolition teams
could even survive in the middle of the hot zone.

What they needed was something that could magically use
up the wreckage, build new buildings, and thrive in a radpacked glow-zone. Luckily for them, about this time Dr.
David Chiang showed up from the wreckage of New Chicago with a bucketful of greyish goop and a solution.

Chaing's grey goop was nanites—simple submicroscopic robots that could be programmed to move molecules around the way an ant moves a grain of sugar. One ant isn't much, true. But if you have trillions upon trillions of these "ants", pretty soon, you're moving a LOT of sugar. A CDC scientist
working to cure the short-lived Carbon Plague, Chiang had stumbled upon a particularly powerful form of nano; a strain that reproduced extremely fast, was almost tireless, lived off carbon dioxide and heat energy, and was capable of
moving huge amounts of matter in a very short time. After an interrupted experimental run in New Chicago, Night City was the perfect test for Chiang's new nano; the ruins were still hot, the ash from the blast was pure carbon, and there
weren't any people to get in the way. Adapting the nano to be programmed using simple construction algorithms directed by a central computer, Chiang's brainchild—the Genius Building—was born.

A generational step beyond the "smart buildings" of the early 2000's, Genius Buildings are self-contained, self-maintaining structures created using trillions of construction robots called nanobuilders. These nearly microscopic machines construct buildings from raw materials, following the robotic guidance of a central "architect module."

The architect module also holds the building's power supply, main taps for water and utilities, and repair coordination. The building grows around the architect module, following a unified plan that is agreed on by the surrounding modules. To make sure it all comes out right, there are only a limited number of building plans possible,
and all the Architect Modules in an area are programmed to discuss the layout of their buildings with each other. Common layouts include:

Tiers: These are building modules that are clustered along a street. They reach from one level to the bottom of the next level in a continuous segment, much like the brownstone blocks of old New York. Tiers are the backbone of most of Night City. Each one is a huge megastructure,
much like a piling holding up a dock, with many openings and levels.

Roundabouts: These are buildings opening into a central transit shaft. They are connected by ramps and catwalks that span the shaft from side to side.

Suspensions: These are buildings suspended in transit shafts, air shafts or on ramps. They can be cylindrical, pyramidal or square, although cylindrical is the most common. They are connected on all sides with catwalks and roads. Corporates tend to favor these, as access is easy to control.

Starscrapers: These are buildings that are rooted in the ground, usually next to a transit shaft. Starscrapers are incredibly tall, often reaching over 1000 stories. They are cities in themselves, often combining the work of several architect modules building on top of each other.

Cores: These are hollowed out, conical groundshafts usually covered with a metal or clear geodesic dome. Transit tubes and exits lead out from underground to surface terminals. There is usually a park at the bottom. Most remote towns are
of this model, as well as all Desnai Parkologies.

Spans: These are living structures built as modules along bridges, dams, or other horizontal structures. Transit is along the side or top of the underlying structure.

Genius Buildings are designed to operate independently, much like beehives. The Architect Module is the queen. A typical Architect Module can build a ten story building in about three months. Once the building is finished, it settles down in the basement and starts to bud. A month
later, it propagates four "children" Architect Modules just like itself, that stump off on their own little legs (surrounded by a cloud of builder nano) to start their own buildings. This means every four months another building and four more architects. Do the math, goboy, and you soon
realize that in one year, you get sixty-five ten-story
buildings from one lousy Architect Module.

The first month, Night City rolled out two hundred Architect Modules. That's thirteen thousand buildings. More than twice the number of high rise buildings in central Manhattan.

In one year.

It's been around fifteen, say twenty years, right?

Increasing geometrically.

Getting the picture?

The construction wasn't just upwards though. Once the nanotech builders had exhausted every scrap of the wreckage of old Night City, they started branching down and out. Excavating deep into the earth for raw materials, the
nanobuilders left huge tunnels and excavations, which were promptly filled in by other types of nanobuilders. Other nanobuilders diversified, drawing material off the seabottom and throwing the results up as spans over the water and along the shore. As the Drift Cities came to rest along the California Coast, outrigger bridges were constructed to integrate even these into the mass of
the ever growing sprawl.

To make things more interesting, pretty soon Chiang realized that the nanites weren't shutting down once they'd finished a building. Affected by leftover radiation from the Night City nuke, they were replicating, diversifying. They were even starting to cannibalize each other in a bizarre simulation of anthill warfare. The City began to grow far beyond the expected boundaries; in two years, it had absorbed every habitable structure for two hundred miles, converting ruins, highways, buildings, even exposed landmasses into miles of habitable City Space. It was even
rumored that the nano stripped the bodies out of graveyards. That it absorbed sleeping people if they didn't wake up in time.

In the end, Chiang went insane and hung himself from the highest tower of the City Center. But his creation lives on in the titanic megastructures that make up Night City. (It's also rumored that Chiang lives on as well; that the nano ate his corpse and converted it into the penthouse of the building he died in.)

Nanobuilders are specifically programmed to avoid certain extremes of environment; they don't build in deep water and they don't build on mountain slopes steeper than 30°. They tend to prefer flat areas over slopes, and well-watered
areas over deserts. The result is that the majority of the Night City megacity is concentrated within a narrow band between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Nevada Range. Mountains and lakes also break this profile up—the Night City megacity isn't all one big construction, and there are
gaps in the superstructure that are spanned by freeways and outrider structures. However, even with these breaks, the overall design is that of one vast urban area, linked both horizontally and vertically by a bewildering maze of ramps, elevated roads, connecting bridges, tunnels, and flyways.

All this building doesn't come without a price, however. Although Genius Buildings are self supporting, integrating solar power storage arrays, water collectors/waste processors and other functions into the basic building design, eventually the building's Architect Module runs out of raw materials to maintain itself. The building dies, leaving a habitable shell no longer maintained by its all seeing robotic manager. Other buildings start to cannibalize
raw materials from it; the structure weakens and eventually collapses. When enough buildings have died back, new Architect Modules move into the area and start building on the ruins of their deceased ancestors.

In many ways, Night City is like a coral reef, its framework created by millions of self-regulating organisms, with humans squatting in the reef's skeletal structure like tropical fish in a lagoon. Humans provide the furniture, street signs, decoration and plants, but the buildings themselves live on whether there are people there or not.

So in a place this big, how do you figure out where things are?

Simple. You use Integrates, Hubs, Levels and Zones.

Integrates
Integrates are parts of the City that correspond to general geographic regions of the old California Free State. Large cities are arranged in central hubs of a million or more people, with outlying City Cores and span cities linking in. For example, SanFran Integrate has massive hubs around
Old San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, with megastructures and span cities crossing the Bay and arching over the Coastal range to the Pacific.

NorCal Integrate: This region covers north of San Francisco to Portland Oregon. Since this area is covered by mountainous forests, it is not as dense as the Integrates to the south.

SanFran Integrate: This is the region that encompasses the original city of San Francisco, as well as the surrounding
cites of Oakland, Berkeley, San Mateo, and San Jose at its most extreme.

MidCoast Integrate: This covers the region from SantaCruz
to Monterey, with outrunners over the San Gabriel Mountains to link to the Central Valley. Many small towns have been replaced with City Cores linked to larger townships by tunnels, bridges, and flyways.

Central Valley Integrate: This area is a web of outlying City Cores and agricultural fields, with several large Urban Zones acting as the hub for the region.

Night City Integrate: This is the original core of Night City, extending north to the MidCoast Integrate and merging south into the Los Angels hub. The original Night City lies in about 100 feet of water beneath the arching overpasses
of the new construction; the central City Core is still lingeringly radioactive and is avoided by all by the most hardcore scavengers.

Los Angels Integrate: This zone covers all of the old Los Angeles Sprawl, from the San Gabriels to the ocean. Much of this region is underwater, flooded in the aftermath of the
Quake, or later subsumed when the icecaps were melted by the Orbital Mirrors. As a result, much of Los Angeles is made up of older ruins that jut out of the water like broken teeth, capped by swathes of new construction where
the water isn't too deep.

Santa Diego-Tijuana Integrate: This region sprawls from the Mexican border town that was once Tijuana, over the desert to San Diego, then north up the coast to Long Beach. SDT is
one of the fastest growing regions in the Night City megacity; lots of open land, raw materials (sand), and desert heat made a perfect environment for the nanobuilders.

Integrated Hubs
Each Integrate has a central hub, where most of the regional government activities (such as there are) take place. These Integrated Hubs are the central cities for a sprawl of geographically close subcities. They orient the Night City megacity from north to south; the freeways run through the Hubs and most of the larger buildings have "grown" in these areas. Most Hubs are centered around particular Old Cities buried underneath them:

• Ash-Med Integrated Hub
• SanFran Integrated Hub
• Night City Integrated Hub
• Fresno Integrated Hub
• Angeles Integrated Hub
• Santa Diego Integrated Hub

Often times, as in San Francisco, Santa Diego, and Portland, there are exposed areas of the Old City preserved as parks or memorials. This isn't easy; it takes regular applications of counter-nano to kill off the encroaching Builders and keep them from eating landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge. But the locals seem to feel it's worth the effort.

Levels
Levels encompass the vertical component of the megacity, which is built like an urban layer cake. As a rule, the higher you go, the nicer the environment gets; you're closer to sunlight, solar and wind power generators, rooftop gardens and water traps. The lower you are, the uglier things become; most of the ruined parts of the city are down below, as well as most of the waste processing
systems, scavenging yards and the nastier denizens of the Street. The Night City megacity has three mainlevels:

Highcity: This is the realm of starscrapers and other high altitude, expensive living areas. Parks, solar and wind farms lie in this level, as well as a lot of the rooftop gardens and water supplies.

Midcity: This is the main level of the megacity. It is webbed with transit corridors, freeways, office/shopping spaces, and high density "concentrated apartments" (conapts). Most people live at this level, in a dense urban environment where only neon and light shafts illuminate the
buildings; a bustling, noisy space that never seems to sleep.

Undercity: This level is mostly ruins; parts of the Old Cities that have been built over; also abandoned spaces and industrial facilities There's not a lot of traffic here, and what there is is mostly gangs, factories and freight. Don't expect to see the sky here; you're probably looking at the bottom of the Midcity level freeways. Much of the
undercity level is also flooded; this is a favorite place for Reef scavenger gangs to set up shop.

Zones
Zones are East to West areas that sprawl horizontally from the Pacific Ocean to the Sierra Nevada range. In general, Combat Zones, Urban Zones and Road Zones weave in and out of each other, bordered by Ocean and Waste zones.

Oceanzone: Westmost, offshore areas; home to floating (Riptide) or underwater (Reef) Enclaves.

UrbanZone: Congested mega-urban areas, home to Edgerunners, streetgangs, Cee-Metals and NeoCorps.

Roadzones: Central city areas where the main transport arteries are. Home to gogangs, Rollers. Besides roadways and transport tubes, there are lots of urban structures (Edgerunners, some Cee-Metals) spanning the freeway lanes.

CorpZones: Areas controlled by Neo-Corps. Offices, labs, apartments. are all found here in these secure compounds. Expect a high level of security and an unfriendly welcome.

CombatZones: Contested City space controlled or taken over by gangs or other hostile groups. Usually being torn up by the Builder nano.

WasteZones: Uninhabited areas to the east of the megacity, edging the desert. Classic "road warrior" (RaffenShiv, Rollers) turf.

OK, so let's put it all together. Level is how high you are in the megacity and your access to power and food (Highcity), business and entertainment (Midcity) or factories and ruins (Undercity). Zone is a general indicator of the type of environment you're in, as well as a rough approximation of where you are in relation to the ocean or desert.

The combination of level + zone equals your Volumetric and gives you a pretty good idea of what's going to be around you at any given time.

Say you're travelling along a freeway—that puts you in a Roadzone. But your Level will also affect your situation:

Highcity Roadzone: Open air highways, super high speed traffic, possibility of encountering bad weather or air attacks.

Midcity Roadzone: High speed transit, sometimes moving through downtown buildings, with occasional attacks from bozouku gangs and boosters.

Undercity Roadzone: Lowspeed transit on bad roads, moving through ruins, flooded areas, or labyrinthine factory zones. Expect lots of trouble from gangs, scavengers, or bad-tempered truckers trying to deliver a load.

Here's another example. Say you're travelling over water at the megacity edge. That's Ocean Zone. No big buildings out here, so there‘s no Highcity level. But you still may be travelling through:

Midcity OceanZone: Look for floating cities, pilings, piers, boat towns, span cities. Could be some trouble with water-based boosters, pirates.

Undercity OceanZone: Expect submerged city ruins, Reefer colonies, wrecked ships and subusing pirates.

So now you know where you are. But how do you get from place to place? You move between volumetrics by using:

Freeways: These are highspeed, suspended structures linking various areas of the megacity. Equivalent to the interstates of the previous century, they are part of the megacity itself, passing through buildings, arcing up ramps, holding up structures. Freeways are never smaller than 8 lanes, with programmable holosignage and lights incorporated into the design. They are self-repairing
nanocrete, a fusion of nanoplastic and asphalt.

Transit Shafts: These are elevator and lifter banks along the side of the shaft. There is very limited air space in these; since ramps, catwalks and buildings are suspended in them.

Air Shafts: These are ventilation and skylight shafts with no external transport—you need wings or airmobile vehicles. Big gaping holes facilitate travel, although airshafts are not really designed for it.

Ramps: Few and far between, these are spiral freeway ramps that go from level to level. They never go more than one level at a time, so you'll usually be forced to travel some distance on the horizontal before you can go to another ramp.

Summing Up
So welcome to Night City, the largest human-made structure on earth. A place so big, so chaotic, and so dangerous that there's only one kind of person who could survive living in it—a true Cyberpunk. (That means you, chombatta.) So grab your gear and get ready to cruise the volumetric, because if you can make it here, a wimpy little burg like New York ain't gonna be any problem at all.