December update (and some corps to meet)
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Dec 14, 2023 at 08:06:06 AM
Hello! This update is a little later than expected—it's been a busy end of the year, and I finally caught Covid, so that was fun. (I'm fine now, don't worry.) This time I'd like to do an update, then show you some more of the setting setting.
Update
I've been set back a little by That Stuff I mentioned—the setting chapter still needs a bunch of locations—but besides that, we're doing okay. The main thing consuming my time at the moment is working with consultants: Pinnacle City is an artificial island somewhere in Oceania, so I've been recruiting people from around the area (as well as SEA) to help flesh out the setting and make the City feel more like a real place.
By that, I mean they're writing goofy names for me. Wetrunner is a less serious cyberpunk game than my last one, and I'm partly expressing that by giving a lot of characters aquatic-themed pun names. The consultants have been helping me come up with names that work in other languages too.
I've also been asking for location and corporation names. As an added bonus, that means I've been getting suggestions for characters, locations, and corps to flesh out the setting in ways I wouldn't have thought of myself. (So what a consultant would normally do, more or less.)
A lot of this is setup for what I want to post today! I don't have a full draft yet, but I still want to show you something. This is a long one, so if you want to skip it, scroll down to the last header.
Wetrunner Corporations
Pinnacle City was first planned in the 2090s as a response to the climate collapse. It was meant to be a new home for some of the world's many climate refugees—in fact, many of them were employed to build the City with the understanding that they'd live in it. Unfortunately, a syndicate of corporations slowly wormed their way into the project, hollowed it out, and took it over. Once they could set the rules, they pushed those refugees into a slum at the back of the City (which just barely fulfilled their contracts) and turned their sun-drenched new island into a beach tourism paradise.
(Surprise! A big part of the game's aesthetic is fun summer vibes papering over some bleak shit!)
These corporations are a big influence on the setting; they touch every part of the City in some way or other. The biggest ones are described in terms of their focus (though most are big enough to have a ton of subsidiaries), their style (how its employees will probably act in any situation), the kind of fish their leaders collect/are associated with, and their flaws.
Here's a bunch of them! Hopefully not too many for a KS update!
Security Corps
First: When the PCs break into a facility, who does their security?
There are a few options here! Poseidon Group are the biggest—they're a massive US corporation that also dabble in cybersecurity, law enforcement, and defense (read: war crimes). If the PCs' opponent can afford The Good Stuff, they get it from Poseidon. Poseidon Group is owned by the Morin family, who like catfish and all fucking hate each other.
Dragon Tail isn't one of the big corps, but this Australian security and cyberware corp has carved out a niche with aesthetic: handsome guards in matching clothes, plain-clothes guards that can blend in easily, etc. They're basically the middle-of-the-road option for people who can't afford Poseidon.
On the lower end of the spectrum is Gunz-2-U, a small security company from the South Florida Metroplex. They provide the mooks. These guys are so incompetent or bloodthirsty even the police would reject them. Their training course includes action movies. They are low-paid enough to make them susceptible to bribes. They provide the appearance of security for the mark on a budget.
Hydra Lab
Hydra is a fusion of research companies, all founded by long-dead billionaires in the hope that it might make people forget their legacy of grifting and worker exploitation. It has nine departments, each with a different fish as their symbol (Engineering has Holocephali, DeepSea has Eastmanosteus, Security has Dunkleosteus, etc.) Hydra has made some startling scientific discoveries, and though they're small compared to the other "big" corps, they have a lot of influence.
Their main problem is that their departments are always competing for funding, credit, and scientists. On top of that, some of them are still staffed by descendants of the rich sex criminals that founded them, and they wage their own little wars to inflate their family names.
New Tide
These guys were mentioned in the sample scenario! They do everything that gets eyes on screens, from shows to newscasts to VTubers. They put on a show of making content for everyone, but it's mostly pro-corporate propaganda. As far as they're concerned, humans are talking eyeballs whose value is measured in plays, clicks, and views.
Their CEO, Nitride Wei, has a habit of fathering a ton of children and then giving them jobs, so while the company has a "dynamic, low-hierachy structure" on paper, its structure is riddled with toxic failsons who will try to get you fired if you don't listen to them. Wei loves to mentor promising talents and gift them with custom fish which allegedly suit their personality and definitely make them tempting targets.
Sadagat Engineering
A manufacturing company that dabbles in everything from appliances to boats to construction to robotics. Their mission is basically to build your house and everything in it, preferably for a fuckton of money. All their products need related products, attachments, or some other bullshit to get you spending more. (Did you forget to make the product fucking work? Great! Sell an upgrade!)
S.E. is run by Neo Gun Sadagat, an entrepreneur from Manila who lives on a super-yacht that circles the Island. He has everything he wants there—food, handsome men and women, a bowling alley—and no intention of leaving. (Sadagat means “out at sea”, do you get it, etc.) Despite this he still micromanages the shit out of his company; all major decisions must be run by him, even if you have to wait for him to helicopter back to headquarters.
Senraku Fisheries
A biotech company. They're famous for their pharma-fish and cultured seafood, especially their infamous Nu-Seafood™ (The Food You Can See); they also dabble in aquaculture, healthcare, and gene therapy. They have all sorts of fish, including the weird options like necrofauna and prehistoric fish yoinked Meg-style from a deep ocean that climate change disturbed.
Senraku are always looking for new, profitable discoveries, and are willing to take quite a few risks to get them. They've crossed so many lines recently it's been hurting their reputation—in fact, a recent incident in which a bunch of genetically modified fish escaped from their Seattle annex into the ocean has other corporations sensing weakness and plotting to raid them for their rare, valuable aquariums.
Smaller Corporations
There's more, but I am gonna save the rest for later. I do want to add that not every corporation in the book is some huge megacorp—there are a lot of smaller companies which exist to fill niches or provide potential marks for the PCs to go after. (Dragon Tail and Gunz-2-U, mentioned above, are actually examples of these smaller companies; Poseidon Group is the big one.)
There's even more if you count the random tables! If you like your games to come with a ton of tables, I've got some great news for you.
Other companies in this category include:
Kozlov Medical: Cybernetics. Not gonna lie here: KozMed exists to provide "standard" cyberware. They also help rich fuckers extend their lifespans in exchange for help with their shadier research. Its bigwigs have a thing for kaluga and kaluga caviar. I know what you're thinking: why would you make an enormous goddamn beluga that’s as annoying to keep as it is to steal your whole thing? Eat shit, that’s why.
Lucky Cat: This biotech form once worked with Hydra to make a cybernetically-uplifted cat, Tinkles. Tinkles the talking cat quickly became a celebrity, and eventually leveraged that to buy out the company. Lucky Cat mostly help other corporations with their research, so they can appear on all sorts of corporate dives. Tinkles has bigger dreams though, and is currently plotting to raid Senraku for its delicious fi—research data. I said research data.
Second Ocean: The antagonist of the Hard Wired Dive scenarios. This is an enviro- and marine technology research company: seafloor mapping, deep-sea robotics, solar-powered monitoring and plastic collection drones, pollution scrubbers, all that kind of thing. It was originally a non-profit institute, founded by the Reclaimer scientist Mifune Hiryu and his mates. Unfortunately he was murdered by his coworker, Graf Teppelin.
With Mifune out of the picture, Graf has turned Second Ocean into a PR firm disguised as a research institute. Corporations use it to launder their reputations by pretending to support the Reclaimers, and Graf gets to appear on newscasts as the "Reclaimer expert" that provides "balance" against people who actually give a shit about fixing the planet. It's win-win!
The PCs are pulled into this mess by Mifune's daughter Haru, a roboticist with a pile of inherited cash and a burning need to uncover the truth. Over the course of several scenarios, the PCs gather evidence, liberate Mifune's work (which Graf is still periodically releasing and taking credit for), and finally get Graf's ass. Several fish will be stolen.
What Now, Though
Okay, this wasn't the full setting draft, and I'll apologise again for that. Working on it, though! I'll post that up when I can; if I don't finish the whole thing, I'll at least try to present the corps and other factions (Reclaimers and criminal orgs, mostly.)
It's getting late here, so that's all for now. See you soon!
