The Matrix has you....

When the Wachowskis named their enslaving computer system The Matrix, they knew what they were doing. The word was originally coined by William Gibson in his seminal book Neuromancer (please please read it now if you never have, you can trace 99.99% of all cyberpunk to that book) and it describes the visual and sensorial feed one has when Jacked into the Grid, a - by this point - interplanetary communication network, connecting together virtually every computer humans ever made.

The microprocessors in a Deck (a Jacking / hacking computer) converts the impulses of data in the Matrix into images, sounds, feelings a human can interpret. Computers will be nodes, data links long luminous lines, files might be boxes, or tablets of text, or floating signs. Other, less benign programs (Like ICE: Intrusion Countermeasures Electronic), might be interpreted differently. A firewall will be exactly that, a wall. Or a force field. Or a castle. A decryption program might be just a set of gears, churning through the data. A worm or hacking program might be a drill, a spear, a hammer, a bull.

If you get hurt in the Matrix, the neuro-feedback will zap your brain and damage you physically. But you need to Jack in. After all, the whole Universe is in there. Just waiting for you.

Characters: The Soldier (Victor 'Volt' Constantine)

All RPG's are, by design, tactical simulations, hence the need for varied characters, covering the widest possible base - your wizards, your Paladins, your rogues. New Hades is no exception.

Enter the old soldier. 

Some of the characters have military backgrounds (a consequence of the recent War) M1ke and Malen, for example, but I left it vague how much action they saw. 

Not Volt. Oh no.

Victor was a scout in the War (I'm leaving his side unknown for now). His was the job to infiltrate enemy lines and report back. To help, his army gave him cyber-enhanced eyes (+1 to visual tests), and a standard-issue cyber-arm (no bonus).... With a Tesla Coil inside, for, you know, close encounters.

I'm making him someone fairly upbeat, but troubled. His eyes mark him out of a crowd. Ok, I hear you say, but M1ke has the same. Yes, but M1ke ISN'T human, Victor IS. Or was.

People are desperate to forget the War. Victor is a constant reminder of what happened to your friends and connections. Hence, people shy away from him (-2 CHA).

I built Volt from a previous steampunk character (Savage Worlds, yay!), that I designed around a ray gun (as he had the Weird Science Edge, allowing him to do effectively technology-based 'magic' (Energy manipulation, teleport, etc)). So Volt has a fairly powerful weapon in his arm. He's not good at most other things. He can infiltrate, and scare, but that's pretty much it.

I'm really keen on seeing how he performs!

Characters: The Tinkerer (Malen Kiy)

Malen Kyi (Russian for 'small) was a custom-ordered character by one of my players, but coincidently, I had made a PC with virtually the same stats for a Steampunk setting I'm working on. So it was very much a copy-paste job (Savage Worlds rules ROCK!)

Malen is Russian, a genetically engineered combat engineer (!) His gene splice went a bit fuzzy, however, and what he gained in creative thinking and structural extrapolation, he lost in height. The Red Army had issues with this, and always treated him as a failure. Embittered by this treatment, he promptly escaped, and realised that in the real world, people don't really care about your height, as long as their droids work, you can hack the Matrix, or can build anything from anything. Also his computer, on his left forearm, is pretty cool....

Malen has a Weird Science Edge called Gadgeteer, which I love, love, loooove. If he has parts, and 1D20 minutes, he can build a one-use-only gadget that will work exactly as needed for that situation. Other than that, he's a pretty decent Hacker, and decent with an axe.

Characters: The Fake Man (M1ke)

Hephastus, the Greek god of the forge, could pour metal of such purity that his constructs became animated with fake life and would do his bidding. I'm sure there might have been older traditions of artificial men, but this one is my favourite.

M1ke is an android, a synthetic ceramic/metallic endoskeleton, around a vat-grown nervous system, in turn covered in organic muscles and skin (Think Arnold's T-800, but with an organic nervous system).

Androids were developed half way into the war. They were a reasonably natural development of technology, on the one side, they were making human soldiers more synthetic, on the other, they were experimenting giving robots nervous systems (speeding up processing exponentially). Somewhat in the middle, this was the result. Humanoid servants, ready to kill and die at our command.

Well....

Sort of.

The scientist that created the androids weren't stupid. The filled the synthetic brains with rules and laws, to prevent things from going too far. However, they also gave these new men the greatest of gifts: consciousness. In another age, what we would call a soul.

After the war, the androids lost their usefulness. Most were still in the hands of the military or research institutes, and found themselves wanting for purpose. Some were disassembled (killed?). Others were reprogrammed (lobotomised?). And many thousands escaped. Some live in hiding. Some live normal human lives, shielding their bright purple eyes (an identification control measure) from the masses and their neighbours are none the wiser. And some are rebels, fighting for the freedom of their kind.

A revolution is coming. Most people simply haven't caught up yet.

I made M1ke a soldier, with high combat specs. As a synthetic, he is more difficult to Shaken, although his organic parts make him as vulnerable to injury as any human. He hates Corps (Who doesn't??) and has an attitude. One day, if he meets one of his kind in need, it will be interesting to see where his allegiances lie....

Isn't it NICE? (Cybernetics)

I came up with the concept of NICE (Neural Interface Controller Enhanced) about 10 years ago, for my bloody sci fi novel that will never go anywhere. I'm really happy that bits and bobs of it will forever live in New Hades. 

I wanted a revolution in cybernetics, that allowed the possibilities of Shadowrun-type implants (This will be a recurring inspiration in New Hades).

The point of cyber implants is mainly sensorial and kinetic (noise made by characters, the suave movements of top-of-the-line devices, the jerky movements of Rattown cyberdocs' contraptions), as well as a narrative one, allowing me as the GM to colour a character.

There are two main Savage Worlds sources for cyberpunk: Daring Tales of The Sprawl (simple, to the point, a mere handful of pages of new rules) and Interface Zero (HUGE, rules for everything and everyone, really dense). Both have radically different approaches to cybernetics.

I took a simpler, 3rd route. Cyber is just a gimmick. I'll allow simple implants, for a decent price, and these will give small (+1 or +2) bonuses to checks. A cyber arm might give you a +1 to a Fighting roll, cyber eyes +1 to Notice, etc. Cyber should be part of the universe and not the thing you use all your money to do (although you can, of course, if you wish). And the more you have, the odder you will look, so there will be a) A limit to the number of implants (usually your Vigour die) and b) You'll look odder and odder, lowering your Charisma.

As the New Hades expands, I might change this approach to a more table-written, capitalistic one, but I like the fact that for now, Cyber is the flavour, not the main dish.