TTRPG World Setting

The year is 2096. The world is not the utopia promised in the twentieth century, yet neither is it the uninhabited wasteland prophesied in the early twenty-first century. Instead earth is a bloated mess of intermingled national law and international treaty, where governments fail to meet the needs of an impossibly large number of people while giant corporations hold the metaphorical soul of the masses. The efforts of humanity have staved off apocalypse after apocalypse, managing to avoid outright war and even held back the most cataclysmic effects of climate change. 

But the cost has been the fire of progress, we haven't reached out and claimed the worlds of the solar system so coveted in decades prior, we haven't reached a global understanding or utopian peace, we haven't lifted ourselves from the mire of ambition and desire into anything close to enlightenment. Instead, humanity festers. It is a couchbound empire of barely thinking wage slaves, working their lives away to merely sustain their way of living. Eat. Sleep. Work. Game. Repeat. An ingrained malaise hangs over humanity, and even the technological marvels that surround us seem to exist only to lull us deeper into our monotony. 

For decades the masses had worked in this directionless manner, but on the eve of 2090 the boutique genetics firm Reboot announced a product that awoke humanity from its slumber. NuYou, part biological miracle and part technological marvel. The proprietary technology offered a new start that was more than metaphorical, as they offered to create your ideal version of yourself; young, old, male, female any race in any phenotypic combination imaginable. With this avatar made, your consciousness would be transferred into it, given full rights and citizenship and all assurances of a true continuity of self. At first, people didn't believe it was possible. 

But Reboot proved it. First, with their founder, who crossed the divide of biological gender and was reborn a man some forty years. junior. Then, more shockingly, with a drone. The robotic spokesperson Noel who had served as the face of the company for a decade was supposedly transferred into a human body. He disappeared from public life soon after, but this monumental publicity stunt was the spark that ignited a fervour across the globe. 

Everyone wanted NuYou. It represented a driving desire that nearly every single person wished to obtain. Even those robotic drones who had secretly begun to harbour sentience longed for the promise of NuYou and the freedom to exist openly with free thought and action. Suddenly entrepreneurship was on the rise, people who had lived content in their drudgery began to think for themselves and innovate, desperate to gain the edge they needed to make it in the world. Ever more desperate to obtain the promised new life in the body of their dreams.

This new awakening was not without its downsides. For the first time in decades, the Impoverished slummers and marginalized wastrels of humanity had a spark of hope before them.They railed uproariously against the powers that be, desperate for a new chance at life within the cities. In an attempt to placate the slums; Reboot corp suddenly announced the NuYou lottery- a chance for even the lowest bands of society to grasp the unobtainable. At first, the lottery seemed to be successful in quelling the violence directed towards the city. Everyone wanted a chance for a new start, and for many the prize of citizenship for this new avatar of their desires was more of reward than the restoration of limbs or the revitalization of youth. But, with the promise that NuYou would be up for grabs if the chosen recipient is unable to receive their gift, the togetherness the NuYou lottery brings only lasts for the week of the slummer being chosen. The month following the lottery is a series of violent murder attempts, purges, and physical assaults. If you become associated with the winner, it’s safer to completely disappear. 

Outside the megacities in the great sprawling slums that cover the world, billions of unregistered and illegal citizens throng in masses. Areas of expansive shanty town that had long since been allowed to sink into a mire of inactivity and depression suddenly exploded into a renaissance of border dweller innovation. Their lives are short and often violent, but in this maelstrom of chaos unique individuals mark themselves for greatness in a way forgotten by the rest of humanity. They fight every day just for the right to exist, and through their trials an impossibly small fraction achieve glory. 

While the slums continued to devolve into rage driven suicide, the city grew more and more closed off. Stricter restrictions against slummer access to the city has forced the local cybermancers and forgers to get more creative. Fake city IDs are no longer effective as every single citizen of the city must report for their daily census. If you miss your call too many times, your living situations are either repurposed for scraps, or you’ll wake up to someone in your bed, new city issued gun trained between your eyes, demanding you leave their property.

During the six years since the NuYou lottery was first announced, Reboot and  Amben were not the only companies in power thirsty for a chance to get the  slummers on their side. Cecelia and Drew Eadith of Genesis Cybernetics have been offering cheaper, common household drones to qualifying members of the slums as well as being traveling wanderers- offering their specific services as they walk  around. Having heard a story about a medical drone offering their services to anyone they came across; Genesis couldn’t resist snapping this opportunity up. Releasing four new “wandering” drone lines: Mark, the correspondent for Natural disasters occurring within the slums. John, the hired or wandering security enforcer inside the slums. Luke, a medical drone hired, or wandering in the slums. And Matthew, the police / law enforcement within the slums. It truly remains a mystery as to how Genesis can produce such specific drones, at such high velocity, with no registered company property on the city map. Questions aren’t normally asked, as it truly has done great work to placate the slums and, of course, brings in a marginable profit that is spent in the city. As well as offering much cheaper and rapidly produced drones, they have also gained Reboot’s attention through cybernetics and fusion. In an effort to slow the calamity caused by lack of fusion in the slums, Genesis has been mass producing fusion at  a much cheaper and controlled cost. The effect of which, you will see as the game  progresses. 

With the city being so “generous” in their ways of donating, a few doctor’s  offices have been set up around the city with much more to offer in terms of life  saving medical treatment. One of which being Dr. Brock Naedoll, whose office  draws the line between the bomber gang, and a newer gang, “The Reapers” – a clan  of cybernetic enthusiasts taking down establishments, one security or patrolling drone at a time.