The first thing he noticed was the smell, the rancid drippings of half-eaten bento boxes, dried up urine mixing into the humid summer air, and salty metal. The dried up blood in his nose and mouth. He realised he was in complete darkness, barely able to move his limbs, feeling crushed by something.
He began to kick and shove, moving around massive bags covering his body. Each kick only intensified the stench further, his struggling forcing constant shallow breaths of the filth.
Finally a kick gave way to a steel door, and it flashed with light. He gathered what strength he had left, and kicked again. The door swung wide open, and the sun shone brightly at his eyes, blinding him for a moment.
As his eyes adjusted, he climbed himself out. It was a large dumpster, and he was still in Harajuku.
His head pounded, his stomach churned, and his vision spun. The stench, the kicking, the adrenaline, the fucking hangover. He retched and emptied his stomach onto the street.
"Coulda just did it in the dumpster y'know? Now I gotta deal with this smell, in this gonk-ass heat."
The voice was sharp and tired. Interrupted occasionally by the pull and puff of an electronic cigarette.
The man was skinny, spiky haired and dresed in a black leather jacket with innumerable studs and spikes. His electronic smoke machine had a skull at its mouth, which he would kiss to take puffs.
"Name's Shingo. Been waiting for you to get up, choom. You've been out for a while, they finally decided to dump you after your other malfunction last night."
He was confused. He was just partying at an event, taking shots, grabbing a stray ass or two, and doing the usual SNS exchanges. Music got a bit intense, and the shots stronger, but nothing out of the ordinary.
"You're Ryota Kanamori, I know. Coolest kid on the street. Until about 7 hours ago."
It wasn't crazy for someone to know his name, but what does he mean until 7 hours ago?
"You were on one of those PAN programs for months. Kids you paried with cut you last night after it malfunctioned for the Nth time. Thought you flatlined and dumped you like trash. Little shits knew the PAN was fried, but not that your normal personality kick-starts your brain back when it sizzles out."
PAN? Personality Alteration Neuralware. He knew of it, he had heard and been tempted many times, but never went for it. He was happy, he was trendy, popular. Had the girls, and the money. Didn't need it.
"You probably think you never needed it, and you're right. You were a good kid, a bit of a gonk, but not a bad guy. The night you're probably remembering is the last memory of the normal you, before the PAN took over."
A puff of pink smoke flew past Ryota's face, forcing a short cough.
"You pissed off the wrong guy, and went for the wrong girl. An Ebmitsu exec. They fucked with the trends you followed. You had to spend more than you had to keep up. Joined some shitty service job working for the kids who used to worship you. They kicked you around and spat on you. Circle of fucking life eh?"
He slotted a new cartridge in the E-cig machine, took a big puff, and blew more smoke into Ryota's face.
"We tried to help you, but you didn't listen anymore. Used your last yen to buy into the experimental PAN scop, and we lost you. You went back into your flashy brat life, wooing everyone with your plastic corpo-charisma. But worse this time, with a weird obsession with Ebmitsu's subsidiary fashion brands."
Ryota's head started to wrack again, pulsing as if shocked by a taser. He saw memories he didn't remember, differing by months. Things he would never do or say. And blood.
Bloodied friends, bloodied hands, broken tables and furniture. Bloodied execs in Arasaka-branded suits. Men in black he didn't recognise. Corpses... The memories sent a shiver through him. A fear.
"The kids you were with last night tried to dump you out and make it look like an overdose. But Ebmitsu's gonna want to clean up their mess. So, time for you to disappear."
Shingo turned his head towards him in a smug grin. "Don't worry choom, you can always come back to the Rats. Lets clean up this town together, and smother it in shit."
He held out his hand.
Tag: tabletop-rpg
-
A Filthy Awakening
-
Crafting 2070s Shibuya: Harajuku
i guess the time has come to take on the ever-daunting TCM (Tokyo Central Municipality, A.K.A Arasaka’s playground).
I decided to begin somewhere well-known. Shibuya is a packed place, though not the biggest ward of Tokyo, there’s so much going on in every nook and cranny of it.
so let’s start off from one of these corners. Rather than the expanse that is central Shibuya, I’m going to flesh out the trendy fashion district of Harajuku.
looks packed eh? Welcome to Tokyo once upon a time this area was the central for sub-culture fashion, Lolita, Decora, Thrift, etc. Alongside cute cafes and crepe stands. If you needed something rare, unconventional, stylistically torn, or just wanted to support local alt designers and pop-ups, then Harajuku was the spot.
in 2025, it’s changed a lot…
what’s the current sich?
Takeshita-dori, the once most famous street is now a simple tourist trap destination, the area has been “sanitised”, and though there are signs of the old sub-culture hotspot, it’s all more “market-tested” so-to-speak, commercialised if you will. Even the once thriving boutiques and stands are now replaced with minimalist, influencer-y, and polished stores; to make sure too much personality doesn’t scare the impressionable youth away.
how do I know this? Well I live kinda close, so I just went there. Field research, baby (also I needed new pants).
Harajuku “backstreets”, on a Monday evening I’ve visited before on busier days, though Harajuku is never “quiet”. But this time was a Monday afternoon-evening trip, the area dies down pretty fast around night time, late spots are scarce and with central Shibuya just around the corner, people tend to migrate over.
knowing that, my cyberpunk version should intensify and mirror these personalities.
Bringing it to the 2070s
since the area’s becoming more polished and trendy, I thought to have it almost entirely owned by corps, using AI algorithms to create “micro-trends” which change based on the degrading attention span of the local youth. You could have crocodile synth-leather skinny jeans in fashion for a day and then suddenly all the stores are on a casual neon tracksuit phase.
don’t forget, it’s not just clothes. Corps like Ebmitsu are pushing their personality-altering neuralware and social compatibility mods, we all love drugs without drugs don’t we?
of course the impressionable youth follow it like sheep, due to corpo funded “fashion idols” and/or models who push their trends through social media (or SNS as we call it in Japan).
and this stuff ain’t cheap (at least not anymore), so most of these kids are on mommy and daddy’s hard earned newyen, forming little fashion cliques based on which trends they chase the most. And the average kids who wanna join the party? Well, they’ll try to jump in on one of the trends, maybe get some recognition for a bit, popularity, club invites, empty high-fives and SNS followers.
but once the trend passes, they’re stuck. Poorer than they were before, unable to catch up, they gotta get the money for it somehow… I wonder how.
nice, grey, and boring. Maybe the 2070’s would slap some more ads on there. Or would they keep it monotone to trick kids into thinking they’re better than the neon-soaked masses? nightlife?
since the area isn’t big on clubs and bars, most of the nightlife would be trendy pop-ups with private invites and members. And if you don’t look the part, you definitely ain’t getting in to any of it.
such events would be run by the local fashion cliques (flashy word for the mini-gangs in this area), who use it for their other less-flashy work behind the scenes.
don’t forget, we’re deep in Arasaka territory now. The TCM is no joke, though corps like Ebmitsu and Glitcheon are showing a lot of face, big brother Arasaka’s keeping tabs. Don’t get mixed in with the wrong crowd, if you do, they’d better be smart.
oh and of course, with so many gentrified, influencer-obsessed corpo garbage, there’s bound to be rats around, thrashing around in it.
conclusion
these initial posts are mental dumps of my ideas, the next one will have more concrete structure and finalised information.
if you (yeah all 0 of you) have any ideas, I promise to read them, and then possibly forget. But maybe I wont, in which case I would be grateful.
you’ve reached the bottom, so, see ya next time.
-
crafting the stars: designing constellations for my fantasy world
to my adoring fanbase of 0 people, I deeply apologise for my silence, rest assured that though it may seem as if I’ve taken a hiatus, I’ve actually been hard at work on other worlds which I have now decided to also include here for the sake of having something to post.
though I am doing some cyberpunk work at the moment, my true passion has been medieval fantasy. Tokyo 2077 is a side project, the real meat is in my setting, haphazardly named “The Distant Lands”. I’ve also been using it to run a Mythras campaign or two.
not all of The Distant Lands are developed, the main continent I’m expanding at the moment is called Xanthia. There’s a lot of history and info to go through, but this post is primarily about my recent development of creating star constellations within the world that the denizens could use to navigate or tell fortunes and such.
chart of some of our real world constellatins
so how does one develop constellations?
since constellations are consistently visible stars, which us humans have given shape and meanings to, the first thing is to understand what the cosmos of your world looks like. Whether the universe is a solar system, realms connected by a big tree, a titan holding your planet on its back, etc.
I… have not decided this, and that’s definitely gonna come and bite me in the ass later. So do as I say, not as I do.
once you know how it works, you’ll have a deeper idea of why or when constellations should appear. If you care.
and
make things easy for yourself, tie it to the calendar system. Keeps things grounded.
in The Distant Lands, depending on which constellations are most visible, you would be able to discern what time of the year and even month it is.
now the juicy part, how do you decide on how they look and develop the culture behind them?
i decided to follow a similar idea as the Chinese zodiac calendar, which tells the story of a mythological race between the 12 animals, the calendar’s order matched the order of the race, and from that story we developed personalities to associate with people’s year of birth.
thirst for power, sacrifice and redemption are core themes in my setting, so I decided to tell the story of a king who wanted to conquer the realm to keep his “rose” safe.
old mythological stories tend to be super barebones, so I just started writing sentences like
“The King promised to go to war for his Rose, with his Spear and Steed, he set to conquer all to the Oceans.”
and so forth.
so, this means that the first constellation is The King, that can work in real life, since we have human-ish representing constellations like Virgo and Saggitarius. But I wanted something simpler, so I decided instead of King, I’d do a Crown. And the constellation can be a semi-circle with an extra star or two around the mid-point to represent a gem or centrepiece.
Following similar ideas, my main constellations became as follows:
- the Crown
- the Rose
- the Spear (or some cultures call it the Sword)
- the Steed
- the Sea (sometimes the Ocean)
- the Dragon
- the Heart
- the Eye
- the Bird
this was too short for the months in my world’s calendar, so I added 3 more to make it 12 months:
- Dawn (as the first month)
- Dusk (11th month)
- Twilight (as the last month)
ancient religions in my setting are based on the skies and stars so using things linked to the sun and moon just made sense. It’s also poetic in a way, it could mean that the realm is doomed to repeat the king’s story so long as the skies are alive.
that style of layered symbolism is what I aim to stumble upon, it makes the world feel ancient and naturally developed. If the foundations are strong, you can derive such symbolism from your own work.
what about other cultures?
Xanthia is a Eurasia-inspired continent, and an empire. Meaning there are many languages and cultures, so not everyone will call these constellations the same name, and through linguistic-nuance, the story and meaning behind it can change.
the main cultures in Xanthia are the pure Xanthian people (I’m a creative genius I know), who are based on ancient Romans and medieval Venetians, Milanese, etc.
then there’s Vassen, inspired by old feudal Germany, and then Bjorlund, basically Nordic-inspired, but less vikings and more knights. Linking them to real cultures keeps things grounded, which I like, though it can come at the cost of creativity.
so here’s the constellations in all the languages, in Xanthia, English is not a language.
Concept Xanthian Vassi Bjorlic Crown Crona Krone Krona Rose Rosa Rosa Rosa Spear/Sword Hasta Klinge Sverd Steed Equs Hengst Hestr Sea/Ocean Mare Mer Aegir Dragon Draco Drache Ormr Heart Cor Herza Hjarta Eye Oculus Auge Sýn Bird Avis Fugel Ari i took some creative liberties with which words I used, some are old german/norse (and somewhat adjusted), others more modern, but it’s all to tell the story and set the cultures apart.
for example the Bjorlic people end the story with Ari, which means Eagle, not bird. And prefer to use Sýn rather than Auga/Eye, since it means Perspective more than Eyesight or Vision. Even the types of Dragons that can come to mind based on the different words of the cultures can affect the story and legends.
omg whats ur star sign?!
as you may have seen above, every sign also has some characteristics accompanying them. The first bullet point is generally positive and the second is negatives, in a bid to follow our real world astrology sub-culture (idk if something so commonly known even constitutes as a sub-culture, but eh, life could be dream).
it’s not the most in depth, I didn’t put too much thought into it, since I did want it to be up to interpretation whether they are actually true or not. Like we do in the real world.
the kinda completed chart
bask in my glory. And awful photography skills. and awful handwriting.
anyway, more of this medieval fantasy stuff coming soon.
-
current state of Shimokitazawa 2077
Narrow roads and frequent alleyways makes it hard to catch anyone on the run, and subsequently underground businesses, not to mention the Discogangers’ vast preference for analog tech. So local authorities rely on uniform-less units to catch out suspicious activity the old fashioned way, like 90s detective movies.
For the longest time, the cops had it tough, the Discogangers were a pain, and if they tried to go after them the ‘ganic way, random Shibuya posergangs popping into town would rough ’em up while they were chrome-less.
This cycle went back and forth until the cops realised they were outmatched, and knew they needed a corp to step in. Segatari had a couple developments in the area, but clearly wanted to expand, one of their main issues was dealing with the same rowdy kids who wanted to keep all their retro gear and shops in the area.
So came the first ‘corporate’ alliance of Shimokitazawa, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police agreed to turn a blind eye to whatever tactics Segatari used, so long as they grounded the discogagner kids for them.
The result was a local corpo-gang war, all out high-tech corp vs urban guerrilla warfare.
The kids used their old retro scrap: glitter bombs, tear gas, speakers so loud your eardrums burst, etc. Even pretty decently put together EMP grenades.
Segatari’s tactics fell flat at first. The Discogangers knew the streets too well, had seen the tech before, and never moved as a single unit. With no leader to target, there was no head to cut off. They ran solo ops, hit and vanished, and fought harder the smaller their numbers got.
Though as they’d been riding high on their horses, the kids ran into a new issue; arcade-obsessed posergangs spilling in from Shibuya for new turf. After catching a hard L in a gang war, fans of the popular Dance Impact! arcade game needed fresh turf to practice. The Shibuya crowd wasn’t handing over the arcade change anymore. Shimokita started looking real appealing.
As they started slipping in, Segatari took advantage of the sich, and started investing in new and improved DI (Dance Impact!) tech in Arcades with strategic positioning, using the Breakers to gain control over their renovation-interest zones.
So, a new challenger, the Discogangers now face the more centralised and big-city Breakers gang (fun fact: they didn’t get the name from their dance moves).
The Breakers are still pretty new in town, and haven’t managed to set up the strongest of HQs, but in the midst of this war, some parts of the Discogangers thought to team-up and centralise, to stand better chances. Particularly the more forward thinking Silver Hands.
But wait! You thought we were done? Yakuza.
Yep. Yakuza. What a shit-show.
Turns out, when corps start messing with real estate, and non-belonging Shibuya gangers go around shaking people up for their lunch money, you start to piss off the old dogs. One day, a big dog of the Kawaguchi family got jumped in an alleyway for his change, all cause his suit didn’t match the town vibe, Breaker kids thought he was a tourist.
Even the Discogangers never poked the hornet’s nest, and now they got an infestation. Kawaguchi goons started roaming the streets with their monowires, katanas and only Arasaka knows what chrome under those fashionable, armoured suits.
And that’s about where we’re at, cops lazing around being useless, Segatari still crawling around, manipulating the scenes, the Breaker kids getting busted by the real owners of the town, while holding out in their neon playgrounds as the Discogangers start thinking to finally reform after all these years of anarchy.
Something’s gotta give. And in Shimokita, it usually explodes first. Shit’s about to get real ugly, choom.
-
Shimokita discogangers: analog rebels
i know I set up that whole TCM area for the setting of this supplement, HOWEVER… I don’t feel like working on it yet. AND I left out a few key areas on purpose, the TCM is meant to be Arasaka’s main territory and ‘heart’ of influence in Tokyo, meaning those who like to lay off their grids need somewhere decent to hide.
there’s a word in Japanese called “Shita-machi” (下町), literally meaning “Under/Down Town”. A shitamachi is an area thats cheap, unsophisticated, rowdy, and maybe a bit hippie or punk-y, think Camden Town or Shoreditch in London, for example. Maybe a bit less gentrified than that though. Some popular shitamachis in Tokyo are Ikebukuro, Ueno, Koenji, Kamata, Sangenjaya and Shimokitazawa.
example of a street in a shitamachi by sai_photographer out of all those, Shimokitazawa (usually abbreviated to Shimokita) is specifically unique, its got a huge hippe and punk culture with tons of thrift shops, vinyl stores, underground DJ bars and listening bars. The main audience there are uni students, young musicians and DJs, and of course locals.
since it’s such a unique spot, I wanted to give it more important role in the setting, Shimokita is right outside the TCM area, just on border with Shibuya ward so its a convenient spot to hideout in if you’re in some corpo trouble nearby.
art by Jordi Ros that being said, say hello to the baddest gang in the area, the Shimokita Discogangers:
A gang of old school tech-obsessed kids busting moves to disco and popular tunes from the 90s and early 2000s, you can imagine their parties. They only dress in 5th hand thrift shop outfits, baggy jeans, old denim and patterned pastel trash that seem like they’ve been dunked in sour fruit shots.
LEDs wrap their clothes, they overuse flip phones, got voice recorders, a bunch’a the kids even go full ‘ganic. Made it pretty rough for the authorities to deal with ’em, now the town’s got a weakened law enforcement, and since so much of their communication is through landlines and even “paper” letters, its a pain in the ass to catch them with modern tech.
The kids ride around in suped-up bicycles, which help traversing the labyrinthian streets of Shimokitazawa. Think to just grab one of em? You’ll think twice next time, especially after getting dismembered by their monowire bike-chains. All while a VHS of Disturbed’s “The Sickness” blasts from their retro, duct-taped speakers.
what’s next for these guys? Well they need clear goals, enemies, important members and preferred means of action.
we can imagine they’d have some split amongst their ranks with kids who prefer the full ‘ganic style and others who like to chip in a little, we can name the chromed ones “Silver Hands”, you get the reference, and they made it on purpose to claim that they can still rebel, even with chrome. The others can be called “Unplugged”, like MTV’s Unplugged sessions, easy enough.
and yeah I did think about calling the former “Radio Heads”, and I still might change my mind.
art by kendobi anyway, we’ll flesh out their inner-workings and Shimokita next time.
-
factions of the Ishin ward
it’s been a few days of more laziness, but I’ve decided to put the work pants back on and further work on this location since its got the most development.
what I’ll mainly focus on in this post is general info and factions located within the Nothern Quarantine (soon to be known as the Ishin ward/Ishin-ku).
here’s the introduction:
During the Time of the Red in Tokyo, a large area consisting of the northern wards of Itabashi, Kita and Arakawa were struck with MaMpox-12, a weaponised plague released from Millitech’s bombing of Arasaka’s covert biological weapons labs.
This promptly triggered the government to wall off and quarantine the area, posting patrols and guards to make sure nobody gets in and out. Once the Fourth Corporate War came to an end, Arasaka saw nationalisation, and the Japanese government had them lead the cleanup unit for the area as a form of reparations.
Within the 50 or so years since, the quarantine has gone through rapid change and chaos. With the introduction of various factions and gangs, alongside Arasaka’s Purification Unit and rival corps fanning the flames, the area, soon dubbed the Ishin ward was turned into a lawless and independent walled-off city.
that’s the general sich, Arasaka’s stuck cleaning up, but ready to soon take the reigns. They call it an investment, and other corps call it a way to kick a dying horse, particularly Fujiwara, who’ll soon be gunning on the area for some sweet sweet real estate development.
but these ideas need some brainstorming, so heres a little messy one i did:
call me Dr. Kazimir. Let’s break it down from the top right, clockwise with some simple notes:
- Arasaka’s Purification Unit
corpo janitors with guns. their job? “cleanse” the zone. real job? dig up and reclaim their old buried bioweapon data and prototype tech before anyone else does. Then annex the place for Arasaka’s Tokyo takeover.
Art from Death Stranding and CoD Concepts. Top right im unsure.
- Scrappers
bousouzoku (Japanese biker gang) who turned the abandoned highways into their personal raceway. Jury-rigged bikes, duct-tade cyberware, and a love for loud. known for stealing arasaka patrol drones to make guns and the occasional rice cooker.
Art by Fernando Correa
Art by Inkthinker
- Kang Tao’s little helpers (Shimizu Medicine Ltd)
Kang Tao’s too chicken to poke arasaka directly, so they sent a subsidiary (a Yakuza family with official license for pharmaceuticals) to loot prototype tech. Their agents pack Kang Tao weapons, wear lab coats, and take no prisoners. An initiative set up by Shiming Xu as his little “trial shift” before taking the reigns.
weirdly enough, Arasaka won’t pay them much mind till it’s too late.
- Fujiwara’s real estate hustle
secretly funding gangs to destabilize arasaka. Why? they want to turn the area into luxury condos. Current strategy: arm scrappers with anti-cyberware EMPs and watch the fireworks. Though they take a backseat till the plague dies down a little.
- Outsiders
dropped the nomad idea and instead went for immigrant labor crews that Arasaka imported to rebuild the zone. They rebelled, stole construction mechs, and now a bunch of em run a pacifica-esque enclave. Working on smuggling, mech-jacking, and throwing raves in half-built skyscrapers. Though this also happens a while after the whole plague thing.
- The Bird Bois (BBs)
plague doctor posergang with a 17th century London themed chambara twist. Bird beak plague doctor masks, knives (a London staple), and a theater kid obsession with “purifying” the zone (stabbing people, another London staple).
rumor has it they’re utlising MaMpox vials for their own fucked-up experiments to find “cures”. Side hustle: black market deals with metalmaxers (mecha-obsessed posers who help run and protect pop-up black markets).
Art by Fernando Correa, Katerina Argonskaya, Ann Kurzakova, Joby Dorr
what insanity (work) does this bring?
tons of yet-to-be unearthed Arasaka techs and relics lying about, with a army’s worth of treasure hunters clawing through busted-up ruins. Psychotic bird-headed maniacs running smuggling and trafficking rings, while flashy mechs guard their black markets.
let’s not forget the loud and proud mad-max bikers setting up marathon-like street races and stripping any bleeding-edge tech just to make a styish exhaust pipe.
i think that gives the Ishin ward/Northern Quarantine more than enough character to work with, keep in mind there are many more smaller groups doing rounds. And these mentioned already are not always as active or in their prime, some come and go at different times, create break-off groups, or may rename or die to make comebacks later.
Kang Tao will eventually become a very poweful rival, maybe triggering Arasaka’s scorched earth operation. Which in turn would get Fujiwara even more interested in the then barren land to build some ivory towers on.
anyway, that’s it for now. After posting this, I’ll soon update the Tokyo 2077 page too.
-
crafting the Ishin ward
in the last post I went over the creative process and result of the more condensed area of Tokyo dubbed the Tokyo Central Municipality or TCM for short.
now, I don’t want the whole setting to feel like its trapped in this area, as I mentioned its Arasaka’s theme park, but there’s other corps around and Arasaka’s hungry to expand anyway. So my first plan of action was churning up some lawlessness, with a cute quarantine or combat zone.
say hello to what I call the Ishin ward! First named The Northern Quarantine, now an attempted restoration project (hence the name, Ishin means restoration, named in reference to the old Meiji Restoration and yes I copied the RGG game name dont @ me).
anyway here’s the map, lets go over it:
pretty big zone north of the TCM made up of the Itabashi, Kita and Arakawa wards, a big reason I slapped it together is because I’ve never actually visited those wards myself, and also that I’ve just never heard anyone really say much about them. So I decided to make it interesting!
the lore is that near the end of the 4th corpo war, Millitech got info on some top secret experimental weapons labs and warehouses that Arasaka has buried in the area, so they bombed the shit out of it. Turns out there were some old plague weapons there that never saw light of day, refined versions from the old Unit 731 times (real history, search it up, its fucked).
anyway, obviously that started an actual plague and alongside this and the whole Night City nuke, the Japanese government lost their shit, quarantined the area, put a leash on Arasaka and got them to start cleaning up their mess.
sounds good? no? well tell me.
so at this point it was just the Northern Quarantine, and stayed that way for a while as the plague started dying down, homeless and nomads made it their home, then black markets and gangs started popping up, etc. Good old lawless combat zone stuff.
eventually Arasaka and maybe even the government decided to storm the place and start blasting and the place became a full on warzone. After the blasting, even though they still didn’t have much control they did the usual corpo stuff to save face and officially declared it the Ishin-ku, and continued their blasting, but quieter this time.
exact gangs and groups, timeline and affiliated corps are next I guess. Along with describing the plague and its effects on Tokyo proper.
